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NOTES 



ON 



POLITICAL ECONOMY, 



AS APPLICABLE TO 



THE UNITED STATES 



A SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



NEW- YORK : 

LEA Vf ITT, TROW, AND CO 

1844. 



H*Bi«-» 

,\aJ a.1 

Cop 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by 

LEAVITT, TROW, & CO., 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of 

New- York. 




PBEEACE 



These Notes on Political Economy, as applicable 
to the United States, were written within the last 
two years, partly to give expression to thoughts 
that occurred to the author, and partly to occupy 
and amuse his leisure moments. Friends advised 
their publication, and they are now given, for what 
they are worth, to the public. The author hopes 
that they may be read with care, and without pre- 
judice, their suggestions improved upon, and that 
they may lead to some good results. The whole 
United States will find their attention directed, 
both in principle and detail, to a subject that em- 
braces all interests ; and the Southern States par- 
ticularly, with which the author stands identified, 
by birth and interest, are requested to read these 
Notes in reference to their staple productions, 
wants, and operations. Whatever defects may be 
found in the work, the author hopes to get credit 
for good intentions. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



Definition, 



Paga 
1 



CHAPTER II. 

8 Governed by Circumstances,' is the Golden Rule in Political 

Economy, . - 3 

CHAPTER III. 

Cases requiring Protection, Bounty, or some Act of the Government, 7 

CHAPTER IV. 



Protection, 



Free Trade, 



Power to Protect, 



Manufactures, 



Capital, 



CHAPTER V. 



CHAPTER VI. 



CHAPTER VII. 



CHAPTER VIII 



U 



22 



25 



35 



Vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Fags 

Capacity and Intelligence, 39. 

CHAPTER X. 

Raw Materials, . . 43 

CHAPTER XI. 

Provisions, Water Power, Taxes, Poor-Laws, Machinery, . 54 

CHAPTER XII. 

Facilities of Commerce, Intercommunications, and Interchanges in 

Aid of Manufactures, 58 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Protection is not a Tax on Consumption long, .... 65 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Buying Things, or Spending Money Home or Abroad is widely 

different, ........... 71 

CHAPTER XV. 

Home Market— Its Extent, 83 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Objections Answered to a Protecting Tariff, ..... 89 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Our Capacity to grow Cotton cheaper than any Country, . . 101 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Manufactures will have a good Effect on our General Prosperity, 

and each Branch of Business, ....... 116 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Foreign Commerce, .,..,.... 157 



CONTENTS. Vli 

CHAPTER XX. 

Page 

I Raw and Wrought Values, 164 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Nations of the World — Their Condition, and the Causes, . , 169 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Poor-Laws, . . ■ • . . 194 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Slavery, 200 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Labor, Wages, Profits, . . . . . . . . . 205 

CHAPTER XXV. 
War and Taxation, 216 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Extension of Territory— Texas, Oregon, etc., .... 226 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Banks, Money Companies, Accumulation of Capital, Balance of 

Trade, etc., 235 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Population, 246 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Education, and the Public Lands, ....... 254 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Internal Improvemonti, The Mail, etc., 266 



Vlil CONTENTS, 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

Representation, Public Opinion, Suffrage, 282 * 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

State Debt9, City Defences, and Licenses to Sell Spirits, . . 287 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

New Staples, Silk, Indigo, Grape, Olive, more Sugar and Wool, 

and Ameliorations in Agriculture, 297 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



CHAPTER I. 



DEFINITION. 



Political Economy is a science that embraces 
and regards all measures calculated to advance the 
prosperity of a nation. This is its positive and 
direct object; but, negatively, it questions all such 
measures and policies as are thought injurious to a 
country's interest, or that from their nature seem 
calculated to retard or interfere with its pros- 
perity. 

This science is in its nature essentially practi- 
cal, and should be treated in a plain, practical 
way. Adam Smith, Mr. Say, and others who wrote 
upon this subject, were too abstract and theoreti- 
cal for common use. They either presupposed 
facts and circumstances to fit their theories, or left 
it to the imagination of their readers to shape 
them. It became harder to find the cases to which 
they apply, than to mark the theories and princi- 

2 



4 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

pies that are applicable to such cases, or to trace 
the results that flowed from them. Political econ- 
omy should be treated in a manner so plain that 
all can understand it ; that a child may run and 
read its practical uses and natural results. Plain 
working men have to do with its operations, and 
they are the sort that prove its principles, and 
make the best and most available suggestions to 
the legislators of the countries to w 7 hich they ap- 
pertain. This class of persons are in possession of 
the facts, and acquainted with the circumstances 
that form the basis of all valuable operations. It 
would be " the cart before the horse," in regard to 
such men, to begin with theories. They must first 
have the facts, be in possession of all circumstances 
of the country, its markets, its wants, its labor, its 
capacity, its capital, and materials, and then it is 
easy to combine them and show the effects of any 
policy or operation. Theories and results flow from 
such a practical combination, and are its legitimate 
and natural offspring. 

Many of the rules and maxims of these stand- 
ard writers are doubtless true and valuable when 
the case fits them. They would be much more 
striking and conclusive, however, if worked out by 
practice, in connection with a suitable set of facts 
and circumstances, than when read from books, in 
the dark abstract way in which they treat them 
and state them. All the doctrine of wages, labor, 
capital, profits, monopolies, and so forth, that fill 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 6 

up their volumes to such an extent, is true only in 
reference to circumstances, and the results are the 
one thing or the other, good or bad, useful or inju- 
rious, accordingly as these circumstances exist or 
change. I shall therefore treat this subject strictly 
and literally in relation to the circumstances of 
these United States, and make all my suggestions 
and base all my policies upon that safe and natural 
foundation. Measures that thus rest upon facts, 
and look to the circumstances of the country, must 
be right — cannot err. The case becomes then made 
up, and the consequences aimed at flow certainly 
and naturally therefrom. Fortunately for mankind, 
and for nations, the facts present themselves in a 
way to be seen by all that are desirous of seeking 
truth or benefiting their country, and can be cited 
and stated so as to convince the whole mass of the 
people. 



CHAPTER II. 



' GOVERNED BY CIRCUMSTANCES/ IS THE GOLDEN RULE 
IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

I would lay down this rule or maxim as the 
only available one in this science. The political 
economist, and the governors or legislators that 
would wish to place their country upon the proper 



4 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

ground, and promote its prosperity, must regard it 
or fail. In all modifications of the tariff; in all 
propositions to promote agriculture, commerce, or 
manufactures ; in all laws or arrangements that go 
to affect labor, or change the order of things, the 
only question should be, Do the circumstances of 
the country favor it ; or, do the interests of the na- 
tion require it ? is a case made out to fit or call 
for the measure in question 7 and what is the real 
condition of things in reference to the proposition 1 
not what did Adam Smith or Mr. Say write or lay 
down 1 

That mighty difference between national wealth 
and greatness, and national poverty and wretched- 
ness, is, nine times in ten, brought about by totally 
disregarding the circumstances of countries in the 
latter case, and turning them to account and obey- 
ing them in the former. Servilely copying the ex- 
ample of other countries, whether their circum- 
stances be similar to ours or not, never fails to 
mislead and produce confusion. We may easily 
trace all the national degradation and misery that 
history sets forth to misrule, or gross neglect of the 
circumstances that they were surrounded with, and 
should have consulted. I will here state some 
cases, both real and hypothetical, where circum- 
stances should or did govern, and give the proper 
direction to the industry and labor of man, and of 
nations, and lead to wealth and comfort. 

1st. In the realities of history. Venice and Ge- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 5 

noa could not have failed to push commerce and the 
carrying trade for all Europe. They had the ships ;, 
were in a confined or insular situation ; and embold- 
ened by free institutions to undertake what lay be- 
fore them and promised so much profit and consid- 
eration. The Crusades threw all Europe upon 
them, and unsealed the trade of the East to their 
enterprise. 

Mexico and Peru could not have failed to work 
the mines that lay 'around them, and pour forth 
the precious metals to the whole earth. These 
gave the means of procuring food and clothes from 
abroad, and even luxuries to any extent. 

These United States, for twenty-five years after 
their revolution, with a fertile soil, few laborers, 
and a good market in Europe for their provisions, 
did right in pushing agriculture, and their shipping 
interest. Europe, engaged in long wars, had need 
of their provisions to feed their armies, and of 
their tonnage to neutralize their commerce. Many 
other cases might be adduced from history, to show 
that circumstances did govern, and give to labor 
the proper direction. 

2d. Hypothetically. A country, naturally ster- 
ile in its soil, but underlaid with the richest mines 
of the precious and useful metals, ought to, and 
would, as a matter of course, work these mines, 
even if she had to buy her provisions and clothing 
from abroad. She could well afford to do this, be- 
cause she would have the means of paying for them, 



6 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and her labor would evidently be employed to the 
best advantage. 

A young nation inhabiting a rich and fertile 
country, with but few laborers, and a good and 
constant market for corn and other provisions, 
would of course pursue agriculture, and enrich her- 
self by its productions. They could by their sur- 
plus purchase clothes and even luxuries, and have 
prosperity. 

An isolated people with but little territory, and 
surrounded by fish and pearls, would, as a matter 
of course, cast their nets and push commerce and 
navigation. Under such circumstances many small 
communities have become wealthy and important, 
and even luxurious. 

A tropical population with fertile soil, and un- 
limited markets for sugar, cotton, coffee, cocoa, and 
other tropical productions, would naturally culti- 
vate those staples, and grow rich and luxurious. 

In all these real and supposititious cases, and 
many others that might be enumerated, labor could 
not or did not fail to take the most profitable chan- 
nels. The circumstances in which they were 
placed naturally pointed to these results. In all 
such cases we might mark the controlling influ- 
ence of the above rule, that circumstances do gov- 
ern and should direct the course of labor. In the 
cases of this sort there was or could be no occasion 
for the action of the Government to direct industry, 
nor any theories of the political economist necessa- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 7 

ry to develope their resources. I shall in the next 
chapter enumerate some cases that would require 
legislation, and even protection and bounties, to put 
labor in the most productive channels. 



CHAPTER III. 



CASES REQUIRING PROTECTION, BOUNTY, OR SOME ACT 
OF THE GOVERNMENT. 



When a nation has a part of its population idle, 
or from immigration and growth acquires surplus 
labor, such surplus labor ought to be induced to be- 
come productive. If all the usual occupations be 
pre-engaged and full, then such surplus labor should 
be turned to some new employment, or into some 
new channel of industry, and made to produce 
some new staples, or develope some new products 
in agriculture, or some new articles of manufacture 
that would be available. Should it be necessa- 
ry, protection and bounties should be extended by 
the government. It becomes a leading policy in 
all governments, to prevent any portion of its pop- 
ulation being idle, and becoming not only clogs 
upon the community, but vicious. 

Whenever the usual markets of a people be- 
come overloaded, either by the demand diminishing, 



8 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

or the production increasing, a portion of the labor 
should be drawn off, and by proper protection or 
rewards induced into other and more profitable 
channels of business. This not only gives new re- 
sources, but relieves the business already over- 
charged. 

Whenever markets open for certain articles or 
productions promising greater profit than the usual 
occupations, a stimulus should be imparted by the 
government, to supply such better or more profit- 
able markets. 

Whenever new resources of mines or products 
be discovered of a nature manifestly profitable, they 
should be developed, and a portion of the labor of 
the country less profitably engaged turned into them 
by proper rewards and protection. 

When the independence of a nation, and the 
comfort of the people require certain things to be 
produced, such as iron, copper, lead, coal, blankets, 
flannels, and any such articles of first necessity, 
they should be protected, and their production 
made certain by the proper bounties and induce- 
ments. Woe betide the nation that depends on 
foreign countries, perhaps enemies, for such things ! 
It is a primary policy, or should be, in nations, to 
have such things produced up to the consumption 
or wants of the people. 

In all such cases as the above cited, and many 
others that do annually occur in the history of na- 
tions, it may be necessary to have the aid of the 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 9 

government to bring about the changes in labor that 
circumstances so plainly call for, and that even 
where greater profits might accrue. Protections 
and bounties may be required to break up the usual 
channels of labor, and give to it a new direction. 
Circumstances govern these sort of cases just as 
strongly as those where labor takes a voluntary di- 
rection. The change of habit, the preparation 
necessary, the loss of time in acquiring skill, and 
scarcity of capital, lie in the way of individual en- 
terprise, and prevent any movement or investment 
in the new channel without such inducements or 
guaranty. 



CHAPTER IV. 



PROTECTION. 



In the last named cases we have stated that pro- 
tection, and even bounties, might be necessary to 
give new directions to labor and capital. The 
policy of protection is too manifest in many cases 
to be questioned by any political economist, and 
the practice has prevailed more or less in all ages 
and in all nations. Taunt me not, then, with the 
quaint argument that " the let-alone system is the 
best." Tell me not that, under all circumstances, 
individuals will not only find out the most profitable 



10 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

lines of industry and business, but execute them, 
and realize the profits incident thereto ! that no 
action of the government is necessary in any case, 
no protection or bounty required ! I answer, yes, 
and appeal to experience to support me. A young 
nation never has much capital, not enough to put to 
hazard, or in any manner jeopardize. Scarcely 
any new line of business can be entered upon suc- 
cessfully without capital and skill. No new mine 
could be extensively wrought, no new culture 
requiring expensive machinery, such as sugar, 
could be instituted, nor any of those manufactories 
started where much machinery is necessary. 

There is always a loss of time, and generally a 
failure of profit sustained by persons commencing 
new business. This is the tax ignorance pays for 
skill and experience, and from such considerations 
alone, individuals are deterred from new business 
requiring such skill and capital. In order to com- 
pensate for this delay necessary to the acquiring of 
the skill, and for the delay also in removing capital 
from one business to another, and the time lost in 
the preparation, as well as the almost certain 
failure of profits at the start, is the protection or 
bounty called for and given. This protection or 
bounty, even should it amount to a tax on the con- 
sumers, is only temporary ; because, when it shall 
have induced the capital and skill necessary, and 
built up a competition, the consumers and the whole 
country are more than compensated by the greater 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 11 

cheapness and better quality of the articles thus 
produced. This I will be prepared to prove in a 
subsequent chapter, by the proper catalogues of 
things thus produced in the United States, and their 
prices before and after protection. I will here merely 
say that every production, the result of protection, 
in this country, has been brought cheaper and better 
into the market than before such protection. 

A brief account of the United States, and the 
productions of her labor, will show how much pro- 
tection has already accomplished, and the necessity 
of giving much more extension to the principle. 
For twenty-five years after our revolution the labor 
of this country took the proper direction without 
any protection. It was taken up in agriculture and 
commerce. Provisions were needed in Europe to 
sustain the long wars waged, and tonnage to neutral- 
ize and render safe their commerce ; thus originating 
the carrying trade. As soon as Europe could dis- 
pense with our provisions and tonnage she did, and 
our market for agricultural products became limited 
and much diminished, and the carrying trade was 
completely cut up. The production of staples, such 
as tobacco, rice, and cotton, increasing, owing to the 
wants of the European powers, gave some continu- 
ed employment to our laborers, and for a time were 
profitable. That profit, however, became a curse to 
the country, by filling it with slaves, to the exclu- 
sion of free labor, and leaving the northern and free 



12 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

states almost in distress for the want of productive 
labor. 

In this state of labor, without the skill or capi- 
tal, or any special protection for manufacturing, a 
portion of laborers turned into the handicraft occu- 
pations, because no capital and but little skill were 
necessary to commence in them. Hence shoes, 
boots, hats, cabinet and household furniture, car- 
riages, tailoring, carving, gilding, painting, chemi- 
cals, plantation cutlery, paper, glass, leather, all 
things of leather, fur, and wood, and a thousand 
other things, requiring little or no capital or ma- 
chinery except the hands, were entered upon and 
made of good quality and taste up to the consump- 
tion of the country. All the above articles were 
made without tariff protection and with success, 
because no capital, or expensive machinery, or 
delay, was necessary to their operations — nothing 
but a few cheap tools and the fingers. 

In the handicraft operations there is no dividend 
to be made to capital. It is all the creation of labor ; 
and let the profits be much or little, and the articles 
sell for a high or low price, yet it all redounded to 
the fabricator, and gave him a certainty of support, 
which encouraged him to go ahead. The above 
facts in regard to our success in the handicraft oc- 
cupations prove volumes to our political econo- 
mists. They prove our success in this country, 
where we are told there is no surplus labor, and 
that if there were spare laborers, they need not 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 13 

hope to compete with Europe, where wages are 
so low, without the very best sort of labor-saving 
machinery ; that it must be by such aids, not by 
naked labor, that we may hope to equalize or ap- 
proximate the labor of Europe. Our success not 
only proves our skill and ingenuity, but that we 
have surplus labor in this country. 

All of our manufacturing operations were con- 
fined to the handicraft, until the embargo, the non-in- 
tercourse, and the last war with England, cut off our 
trade and supply from abroad. Then dire necessity 
operated upon us, and the double or treble value of 
all goods made by machinery, aided by high pro- 
tecting duties laid on by the Congress of the United 
States, induced capitalists and skill to commence 
the manufacturing of cotton, woollen, iron, sugar, 
salt, and many other things of great necessity. 
During those times of difficulty much skill was ac- 
quired and much capital invested in those branches 
requiring machinery, and our progress and success 
were great for the time. As soon as these difficul- 
ties ceased, and peace and commerce resumed their 
reign, our politicians lowered the duties, and it was 
with difficulty sufficient protection was left on to 
keep alive the establishments that we had induced 
into existence. The doctrine of free trade was so 
prevalent that we were prevented going on to 
wealth and comfort, and have ever since warred 
upon the manufacturing interest, in a way to 
almost paralyze it. The protection left on, however, 



14 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

has done wonders, and been worth millions to the 
nation, both in value, quality, comfort, and inde- 
pendence. A fortiori, since we succeeded in the 
handicraft, could we succeed much better in 
branches requiring machinery, since labor-saving 
aids do much in equalizing labor. The progress 
already made in manufacturing, the millions annu- 
ally made or saved to the nation by our present 
operations, the independence and comfort derived 
from them, and the assurance that the extent 
already given to manufacturing is the effect of a 
protecting tariff, should encourage us to go on still 
further, and espouse the doctrine of protection as 
one already proved, and calculated to render us 
independent and rich. Protection is, therefore, our 
best policy, and due to our enterprising and indus- 
trious population. 



CHAPTER V. 



FREE TRADE. 



There is something fascinating, but deceptive, in 
the idea of free trade. It seizes upon the unthink- 
ing, and takes with all that do not reflect ; because it 
seems to be a sort of adjunct or corollary of liberty, 
in its broad and unrestrained sense. The dema- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 15 

gogues and designing politicians catch at populari- 
ty by using this popular term, and ring upon it all 
the changes to suit their purposes. Let us exam- 
ine for one moment the facts and circumstances of 
this country in reference to its intercourse with 
other nations, to enable us to understand the term 
" free trade." I will here merely embrace its gen- 
eral rules or principles, and apply them to the 
actual condition of the nations of the world, which 
must be regarded in deciding the question of free 
trade. Nations must be similarly circumstanced, 
stand on the same footing, and have all advantages 
and circumstances equal, in order to ensure the 
principles of free trade working mutually benefi- 
cial to all. Any difference in their condition ; any 
vantage ground ; any engrossing of skill, capital, 
tonnage, or seamen ; any long established organi- 
zation, would give to a nation possessing them the 
vantage ground, and enable it to put all others un- 
der contribution, unless countervailed. Old nations 
would, through it, subsidize young ones. A high 
degree of manufacturing skill and refinement 
would enable the nation haying it to keep a hold 
on all the world. A fertile and virgin soil in a 
suitable climate, would be able to feed old worm- 
eaten countries, and keep them always poor. 

I will exemplify the above assumptions by a 
few cases and facts, taken from real history and 
from the nations with which we trade. The bulk 
of our trade is with England. She is far advanced 



16 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

in manufactures, in possession of all the skill, pre- 
parations, an unlimited capital, and a widely ex- 
tended commerce. If there were no protecting du- 
ties, a perfectly free trade between us and England, 
she would prostrate all of our manufactories in a sin- 
gle year. If she could not do it by skill, she would 
by dint of her capital and commerce, and in one of 
the following ways. She manufactures for her for- 
eign customers, of every sort of thing, two hundred 
million dollars worth a year. Suppose she has sold 
annually one hundred and eighty millions for her 
usual profit, and has twenty millions left of inferior 
or refuse goods. Rather than have this balance 
left on hand, she will sell them for whatever they 
will bring. Where, I will ask, would she sell these, 
and make her great sacrifice ? Not at home, to 
affect her standard market, but abroad, where the 
sacrifice would prostrate and produce convulsions 
among us her rivals, who had but little capital, and 
destroy our home market, which in all countries 
must be the main market. She would not feel the 
loss on these twenty millions, but they would be of 
magnitude enough to ruin us. This sweeping off the 
old stock, and cleaning out the warehouses and 
shelves, is a thing of universal practice among mer- 
chants ; and whether there be a design in it or not 
w T ould make no difference, for the effect would be 
the same on our manufactories. Again, if she did 
it not in the way just named, she, by dint of her 
capital, could well afford to raise and expend mil- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 17 

lions a year to keep down such a rival as we might 
become, and retain such a customer. When you 
add to the above her high vantage ground, her great 
skill, unlimited capital, low wages, cheap and ex- 
tended tonnage, and agents and facilities planted 
every where to aid her operations, you may take it 
for granted that she would keep her ground and 
make us ever subservient. 

Suppose a free trade between the Baltic and 
England in provisions 1 The greater cheapness of 
corn in the North of Europe would prostrate Eng- 
lish agriculture in one or two years. Nothing but 
her corn laws prevents this. That great interest in 
England, built up by the restrictive system in her 
corn and provision culture, would be thrown to the 
four winds, and convulsions ensue. Would France, 
Belgium, and the North of Italy ever allow fancy 
goods to be made in any country without a restric- 
tive system ? Many other cases might be brought 
up to prove the utter impossibility of any young 
country, or one behind in skill and other advan- 
tages, ever coming up to an equality with old ex- 
perienced nations. 

Had our corn and provisions gone into England 
alone free of duty for the last forty years, it would 
have been worth not less than one thousand mil- 
lion dollars to us. We would certainly have 
sold not less than two million barrels of flour, 
worth ten million dollars, and as much or more of 
other provisions, each year to her; and we could 

3 



18 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

have easily spared that much. Who among na- 
tions now has the presumption to preach up free 
trade 7 England, emphatically, and under circum- 
stances that ought to shame her. Without letting 
our provisions in at all worth talking about, unless 
she be starving ; after taxing our tobacco twelve 
hundred per cent. ; our rice four hundred per cent. ; 
and after taxing nearly all articles of manufac- 
ture to prohibition ; seated on her high vantage 
ground, arrogating superiority from her capital and 
naval supremacy, she has the presumption to 
preach up to us free trade. She don't mean that 
she must or will take off her duties, except in the 
case of a few articles of manufactured goods ; and 
leaving on all her corn laws, would reciprocate 
with us only in such articles as she had the start 
and skill in, and where, through her capital in the 
way above named, she could prostrate us. Such 
presumption is intolerable, and tantamount to in- 
sult. Whenever free trade hereafter be suggested, 
it will either be from old advanced notions based 
on interest, or from designing politicians expecting 
to make capital out of the idea by humbugging the 
ignorant. I feel assured that the idea in this coun- 
try has nothing to do with patriotism. 

Free trade has been the eternal cry of our noisy 
politicians, and they have managed to engage in it 
a large and almost dominant party in this country, 
including most of the slave holders and staple dis- 
tricts. No one pretends to an equality among na- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 19 

tions, nor can it exist in the nature of things. 
Some nations stand on the vantage ground in every 
respect, as regards labor, capital, ships, productions, 
manufactures, and skill, as we have said. They 
have gotten the start of others in a way that can't 
be mistaken. Whether this be the effect of long 
time, superior skill, more capital, greater activity 
or wisdom in their councils, matters not ; we 
look to the fact, and if it exists we must govern 
ourselves accordingly. I contend, all nations that 
have the vantage ground and this start, will not 
only keep them, but make them still more availa- 
ble and striking the longer time it runs, as snow- 
balls gather in size the farther they roll, or gravity 
increases in momentum and celerity the farther a 
body falls. England, for instance, with the start 
she has got, could put the whole world under con- 
tribution, and keep it so, if she met no obstruction. 
She would not only take entire possession of the 
new world, and the Indies, including China, but of 
Europe itself. She would clothe France and Hol- 
land, and Germany, and Italy, as well as all other 
countries, with her coarse cotton goods, and flood 
them with the thousands of things got up by dint of 
her machinery, capital, and skill, in the cheap way. 
There would be no limit to her operations, but the 
want of means in other nations to buy with. 
France and the Baltic also would prostrate the 
English agriculture, as we have said, and what 
they left America would finish. It may have 



20 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

taken ages to place a nation on this vantage 
ground, but the leverage that would give her 
would enable her to keep it. Like two individuals 
struggling in a narrow pass, the one who stood up- 
permost would beat back the one below ; or as 
two bodies meeting, of different sizes and momenta, 
the largest will drive back the other. Make trade 
free, let mankind buy where they can the cheapest, 
and a few nations will master all, and absorb the 
capital of the whole world. Who are the advo- 
cates for free trade? England, Holland, France, 
and others, who can produce things, of the manu- 
facturing class particularly, cheaper than others. 
They would then feel that the world was made for 
them, and proceed to take possession of it accord- 
ingly. The nations who got the start in each 
thing would keep it, under this system ; England, 
the cotton goods, cutlery, and iron ; France, the 
silks ; China, tea and china-ware ; America and 
the Baltic, grain; Ireland, linen; Turkey, fine 
shawls and carpets ; the Dutch, toys ; Russia, 
hemp ; the Indies, sugar ; United States, tobacco ; 
France, wine ; and all other things as the advan- 
tage of each country or the start it has in the pro- 
duction of them warranted. The furnishing nation 
would supply up to the wants or the ability of the 
one furnished, as the case might be. Nations there- 
fore are under an absolute necessity of countervail- 
ing each other, and laying on duties and protect- 
ing tariffs high enough to ensure the home market 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 21 

to their own industry. England, with her advan- 
tages and capital, may well cry aloud for free 
trade, for she will profit most by it. She may well 
put arguments into her customers' mouths, and even 
write tracts and distribute them among ignorant 
people, who are waking up to their own interests, 
to the reality of their situation^ and would fain arrest 
the impoverishing process before it be too late. 
England, lately, when she had got all the capital or 
money of the United States for goods that they 
ought to have made at home, and finding the thing 
growing slack, gave her credit for a year or two of 
supply ahead. She even loaned the States two hun- 
dred million dollars to stimulate them to do any sort 
of things, for England knew that if that money should 
be wasted there, it would nevertheless find its way 
back to her, as an ability to buy more goods, 
which it did in the most literal and absolute way. 
A great deal of that money, indeed nearly all of it, 
was realized through exchanges, in the shape of 
goods bought in England and brought out to this 
country for the laborers and their employers, to 
pay them instead of money for their worthless 
work on the roads and canals. I have passed hun- 
dreds of miles through States that had been spend- 
ing millions in making works and banking on these 
English loans, and have seen scarcely a vestige of 
improvements, except some empty unfinished dig- 
gings. These millions ran back to England so 
rapidly for goods, that they had not touched a sin- 



22 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

gle spring of industry, built a town, or even a house;, 
except some board shanties in which to sell these 
goods and liquors. All the loose capital in the 
shape of money, leaves any country that buys its 
supplies from abroad. This money, being in hand 
and ready, offers an easy means of paying for them, 
and proves that the more money a nation that buys 
abroad possesses, the worse for her. Free trade 
therefore would be gain and great wealth to some 
few nations, but poverty and death to most of 
them. 



CHAPTER VI. 



POWER TO PROTECT. 



There are politicians in our country hardy and 
reckless enough to deny the power or right to pro- 
tect or lay restrictive duties. It is pretended that 
the Constitution of the United States gives no such 
power, or if it does allow imposts, yet it is meant for 
revenue alone, not for protection. Of all the bold 
and far-fetched constructions of this instrument, 
except perhaps the absurd doctrine of nullification, 
this is the most barefaced. The power is given 
directly to lay impost duties, and why confine it to 
revenue, any more than to manufactures or com- 
merce 1 Were it not thus given, it would apper- 
tain to the power to take care of the general wel- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 23 

fare, or to establish commerce, and even to the 
vital existence of a nation. I take all this as party 
spirit — as an effort to say something for effect with 
the ignorant, who once were taught by true patri- 
ots of the Washington stamp to reverence that in- 
strument. No one will seriously question the right 
all nations have to encourage either manufactures, 
agriculture, or commerce, as circumstances favor 
the one or the other. No one will question the 
right a nation has to offer bounties or lay protect- 
ing duties intended to ensure the production of any 
article of luxury or necessity, or what might be 
necessary to the independence of the country. No 
one will seriously question the right that one nation 
has to countervail another that may pass some re- 
striction that would lead to the injury of her com- 
merce, or bear injuriously upon her. 

To deprive a nation of the right to encourage 
her industry and her arts, to develope all or any 
of her resources, or to meet other nations on equal 
terms, would cripple her very existence. This doc- 
trine w T ould strike at her vitals, and throw her 
bound hand and foot into the power of her enemies. 
She could not then be independent, could not ad- 
vance her prosperity, or aim at wealth and com- 
fort. The very right to preserve her existence and 
independence, would imply such a power. It 
w T ould appertain to her as a nation, and without it 
she would be but a province of other powers, and 
a foot-ball. 



24 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

All the practice of the government, from the rat- 
ification of the federal Constitution up to this time, 
has been in favor of such a power. The acts of 
congress, the decisions of the federal court, the 
intercourse with foreign nations, the continued 
collections of our imposts, have all been in support 
of the power. The authority of our greatest poli- 
ticians, from Washington the father of his country, 
and Hamilton the ablest and most practical politi- 
cian that we ever had, including Mr. Jefferson, 
Mr. Madison, and even Gen. Jackson, have vouch- 
ed the authority. Is it not strange that there 
should be any party, or set of politicians, at this 
day, after all the facts, and practice, and action of 
the government that we have named, with all this 
staring them in the face, bold enough or unprinci- 
pled enough to still assert the unconstitutionality 
of the power and deny its existence? The doubt- 
ful policies and principles of all nations become 
settled by such grave decisions, such high authori- 
ties, such continuous practices, and it is right that 
they should be so disposed of and settled. Our 
parties, however, obey no authority, regard no de- 
cisions, however solemn, submit to no practices or 
usages, no matter how long kept up and how delib- 
erately made. They seem to wish to keep all 
afloat, to have all in doubt, to favor their designs 
and any unprincipled course aimed at. One of the 
worst features of our politics is this uncertain, 
varying, distracted state of things, and points 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 25 

strongly to anarchy and confusion. The steadi- 
ness of a government, and the justness of its admin- 
istration depend much on having all great poli- 
cies fixed, all doubtful principles settled, and some 
sacred tribunal to which to appeal in disputed 
cases. Since the authority of the federal court has 
been questioned, as it is by a large and powerful 
party, there seems to be no arbiter, nothing to stay 
the ruthless hands of party innovation, and give 
confidence and stability. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MANUFACTURES. 

The great interests of this country are Agricul- 
ture, Commerce, Manufactures, the Fisheries, the 
Currency, and the Forests, or Lumber. As the 
country at this time is most excited about manu- 
factures, and lays the greatest stress on that interest, 
I shall first treat of that, and consider whether it 
requires any aid from the government or not. The 
power and right to protect being undoubted, it be- 
comes a question of policy whether that great 
interest should be left to individual exertions, in 
other words, to chance ; or call down the attention 
and protection of the government, to ensure its 
proper success and development. Circumstances, 



26 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

as I have said before, must determine. I do not 
hesitate one moment to declare it as my most de- 
liberate opinion, as well as that of the wisest poli- 
ticians of the nation, that our present circumstances 
do favor a more extended system of manufactures, 
and do require the protection of the government 
in many branches, until fast established. The suc- 
cess attendant upon what we have already done 
under a fair protection, and the wide-spread opera- 
tions of our handicraft mechanics, warrant the 
conclusion that, in other and greater branches, 
with a fair protection, we would also succeed, and 
not only enrich the country, but render it comforta- 
ble and independent. It is our best and leading 
policy to so encourage and protect, and becomes 
our bounden duty as a nation. In order to prove 
that our circumstances do sufficiently favor manu- 
factures to warrant a protective tariff, I will show 
that we have an abundance of labor, capital, 
capacity, raw materials, fuel, iron, water power, 
demand, climate, facility of intercommunication, 
cheap provisions, savings in freight, commissions, 
storage, mean profits, and cost of materials, from 
all which we w T ould have vantage ground over all 
other nations. With all these advantages, we 
should not hesitate in making them available, up to 
our own wants at least. 

First : Surplus Labor. We need only to open 
our eyes to be convinced of this fact. Nothing 
strikes a foreigner so forcibly, on his arrival in this 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 27 

country, as the great number of idle persons, young 
and old, male and female, that he sees in every city, 
village, or settlement, lounging and dissipating in a 
way to show that they have nothing on earth to 
do. This proves the fact, in a general point of 
view, that there is surplus labor. I will show this 
fact of surplus labor, however, more specially and 
more in detail. The census and our own observa- 
tions prove that three-fourths of the whole popula- 
tion are engaged in agriculture, and most of them 
producing provisions, or rather live in the provision- 
growing districts. It is admitted that the profits 
of corn, wheat, pork, beef, flour, cheese, butter, lard, 
rice, potatoes, and all vegetables and eatables, are 
very small, and the market very limited for them, 
They can sell only a certain quantity to foreign 
countries, because those countries take them only 
as they are obliged to have them, to avoid suffering 
and starvation. It is admitted by all, both the 
people concerned in growing these provisions and 
the politicians, the political economist and the 
thousands of newspapers spread among them, that 
this provision-growing population could produce 
three times as much as it now does, if it had mar- 
ket enough, and the proper inducement. Hence 
they are all the time abusing England and other 
countries, for closing their ports against our pro- 
visions, and their restrictive laws or tariffs. About 
the year 1802, when scarcity and wars opened the 
ports of Europe for a year or two to our provisions, 



28 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

we did produce more than double our usual quan- 
tity, under even that doubtful inducement. These 
facts prove that there are too many laborers in the 
provision department of our agriculture, and that 
less than half can produce all that could be sold. 
The others are working slack, and a clog upon the 
whole operation. It proves that the products are 
already too great and overdone; that they are 
groaning under the burthensome accumulation of 
provisions, actually spoiling on hand for the want 
of a market. The great complaint of the farmer 
is, " we have no market," and are weighed down 
by our granaries, barns, store-houses, and dairies. 
Go to the great West, where fertility is without 
limit, and talk with the farmers; they will tell you 
of their evils, and point significantly to their over- 
loaded fields and barns. Urge them to greater 
agricultural efforts, they will laugh in your face, 
and think you an ignoramus. They will tell you 
that they are raising hog and hominy, to use a 
western phrase, and eating them, and making lin- 
seys and wearing them, and are independent with- 
out money, a market, or refinement. 

I will then assume the fact, and there are abun- 
dant proofs of it, that one-third of the laborers now 
engaged or living in the provision districts can grow 
all that a market can be found for. In other words, 
had they markets and a proper inducement, could 
grow three times as much as they now do, without 
any over-effort. This proves that our agricultural 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 29 

department can spare all the labor wanted for man- 
ufactures. Twelve millions being engaged in this 
pursuit, counting old and young, and one half old 
and strong enough to be daily laborers, could well 
spare one million, counting the proper proportion 
of women and children, for manufacturing purposes, 
and make none the less of provisions. Taking our 
data from Lowell and some other of the most com- 
fortable, orderly, and productive establishments in 
the world, we see that full three-fourths of the 
operatives are women and children. This shows 
that a large proportion of the able-bodied hands 
could still be left on the farms for rough and heavy 
work. Light hands in a factory, particularly women, 
are just as productive as men. and thus ensure a 
wider and more extended productiveness, accord- 
ing to population, than agriculture ever could make 
available. 

Again, there are in and about our cities, towns, 
and villages, thousands of idle persons producing 
nothing, amounting, if women and children be 
counted, to not less than half a million. These 
people are not only not producing, but what is 
worse, dissipating, contracting bad habits, and cor- 
rupting others for the want of employment. They 
might be induced to go to work, were an opportu- 
nity afforded to them. The families of fishermen, 
whalers, and sailors, and also of the numerous trav- 
elling agents, merchants, and runners, might furnish 
much labor to! any manufactory in their neighbor- 



30 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

hood, and be made available. Labor thus abstracted 
from the cities, from agriculture and other pursuits, 
would leave nothing impaired; the rather would 
unclog and ameliorate, and render more virtuous, 
happy, and comfortable, not only the laborers thus 
abstracted, but the departments from which they 
should be taken. 

Should all these sources of labor fail to furnish 
enough, which is very improbable, there is still 
another wide field to enter, that is untouched, and 
that could easily furnish three or four hundred thou- 
sand laborers. I mean the slaves that are not en- 
gaged in the heavy staple cultures. Maryland, 
Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, 
Missouri, and other districts entirely out of the 
sugar, cotton, tobacco, and hemp regions, have 
1,500,000 slaves engaged in the provision districts, 
whose labor is but of little profit to their owners. 
According to the proportions above established, one 
third of these slaves can grow all the provisions that 
the whole are now producing. More than half could 
therefore be spared for other operations, without 
affecting, otherwise than favorably, their present 
pursuits. Not less than 300,000, then, could be 
turned to manufactures, under the proper induce- 
ment. Let it not be here said that slaves would 
not do for manufacturers, for experience and facts 
prove it untrue. Wherever the negro slave has 
been put to, or entrusted with, manufactories, he 
has showed himself both trustworthy and efficient. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 31 

Twenty thousand cotton gins, by enumeration, 
exist in the cotton districts of the United States, 
and are all in the care and management, in a man- 
ner, of slaves ; and many are constructed by them, 
particularly the buildings and gearings. These 
are very delicate machines, very dangerous ones, 
and easier destroyed by fire than any others, be- 
cause the whole atmosphere in and about them is 
inflammable, from the flos cotton flying about; yet 
not more losses occur in them than in other manu- 
factories in the United States. The number of 
houses and gins burned in the slave states do not 
exceed that of the free; and of all these 20,000 
gins, not more than about ten are annually burned, 
which would not be one-fourth of one per cent. All 
the hemp manufactories in Kentucky and Missouri 
are carried on by slaves, from the growing and pre- 
paring the hemp, to the spinning and weaving, with 
complete success. Several cotton and woollen fac- 
tories in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, 
Alabama, and the Carolinas, are carried on by ne- 
groes. The heaviest iron establishment in the 
United States, that of Yeatman, Woods & Co., 
Tennessee, is carried on by slaves, including the 
digging, roasting, coaling, refining, casting, naileries, 
rolling foundries, and machine shops appendant 
thereto, and all the skill of each department fur- 
nished by slaves. Many other establishments in 
the slave states are conducted in like manner by 
slaves; and most of the blacksmiths, shoemakers, 



32 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

carpenters, wagon-makers, and thousands of other 
handicraft employments in the south, are carried 
on by slaves, greatly to the comfort and wealth of 
the owners. 

The negro slave is fitted by nature for an opera- 
tive; is healthy, strong, steady in his nerves, and 
highly imitative in his habits. You own this labor, 
can regulate it, work it many or few hours in the 
day, accelerate or stimulate it, control it, avoid turn- 
outs and combinations, and pay no wages. You 
can dress it plainly, feed it coarsely and cheap, 
lodge it on simple forms, as the plantations do, house 
it in cabins costing little, and all the skill you im- 
part to it is your own, and not to enable it to rise up 
and extort on you as the free labor often does, and 
quit you in time of need. On the score of humanity, 
the slave is better off in a comfortable warm house 
in-doors, than exposed half clad on the farms, amid 
swamps and rain, and would be more cheerful and 
happy. Another view equally dear to humanity, 
and worth still more, is the idea of exempting to 
that extent free people, and particularly delicate 
females and children, from factory drudgery 
and labor. As we are destined to hold slaves 
through a series of years yet, perhaps a century or 
two, let us bestow upon them the worst, most un- 
healthy and degrading sort of duties and labor, to 
the exemption of free persons. This would shock 
humanity no more than slavery does, and make 
freedom more dignified and valuable. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 33 

There is another way of looking at this sub- 
ject, that places it on a footing totally different from 
all other kinds of labor. The slaves are owned, 
and not regarded in the districts I speak of as capi- 
tal. The owner will not sell them from the proper 
feelings of humanity; nor will he free them, be- 
cause he feels and knows that they would be in a 
worse condition. He therefore stands in a curious 
relation to his slaves, and a sort of tacit understand- 
ing exists between them, that, as long as the slave 
can feed and clothe himself, the master will identify 
himself with him. There are not less than half a 
million of slaves in the United States in that situ- 
ation, and on that footing. I am warranted, there- 
fore, in pronouncing them no capital to their owners. 
Suppose the slaves so circumstanced be put to man- 
ufacturing, for which we have showed above they 
are well qualified, what will their wages be ? The 
elements of their wages to the owners would be 
the food and clothing they consume, for unfortu- 
nately they more than insure themselves by their 
increase. I can feed and clothe snugly, within 
doors, and in a warm room, a slave for twenty dollars 
a year, and in a way to be more comfortable than on 
a plantation. Now divide twenty dollars among 
three hundred working days in the year, and it is 
about six and a quarter cents a day, the wages that 
such labor would cost. In the free portions of the 
United States such labor costs forty cents, and in 
Europe from twenty to twenty-five cents a day. 
Such a wide difference must count, and some day 

4 



34 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

turn the world upside down. All the advantages 
are in favor of slave labor, and humanity also ; ex- 
cept perhaps that in this mode productive slavery 
might be prolonged and easier controlled. 

We will now sum up as to the amount of surplus 
or idle labor in this country, and see what might be 
made available for manufacturing purposes. From 
the agricultural districts one million; from the cities, 
villages, marine and fishing districts, half a million ; 
from the slave districts, four hundred thousand; and 
from other bye places, one hundred thousand: 
making in all not less than two millions that might 
be gathered up and made useful for manufacturing 
or other new occupations. This abstraction would 
leave agriculture in a much more wholesome condi- 
tion, not only unclogged, but in possession of a new 
and increasing market or demand, and a set of cus- 
tomers that would have the ability to consume. It 
would also break up those dens of vice in our cities 
and villages that are now sustained by the idle. 
The above vast amount of labor would be greatly 
increased from the very circumstance of protection 
giving a certainty of employment, by bringing or 
inducing thousands of the best and most skilful 
laborers from Europe, and establishing them in this 
country. No doubt, therefore, can remain as to the 
abundance of labor in the United States to estab- 
lish and work manufactories up to our own con- 
sumption. We have more available laborers than 
England and this country both employ in the cotton, 
woollen, iron, silk, and other large interests. Eng- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 35 

land employs in these branches not more than half 
a million laborers, and makes annually, including 
her own consumption, not less than four hundred 
million dollars worth. How overwhelming the 
idea, that we have idle people enough to produce 
four hundred million dollars a year ! Confine it, 
however, to our own home supply only, yet we 
might save, by making it, the seventy or eighty 
million dollars worth of goods that we import from 
abroad, without in the least straining after foreign 
markets, or risking any thing at all. A protection 
that would secure to us our home market would 
save us this eighty millions a year, and soon enrich 
us. Applying any more labor to any branch of 
agriculture would be the utmost folly ; it would be 
like the process of hammering a guinea ; you may 
give to it more expansion, but no more value ; indeed 
impair, the rather, its sterling stamp and character. 



CHAPTER VIII 



CAPITAL. 

Let us now inquire whether w 7 e have capital 
enough to give to this labor an outfit of machinery. 
As a proof that capital is abundant, interest in 
New- York and our other great cities is only four 
per cent., and great inquiries daily made for objects 



36 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

of investment, and anxieties continually manifested 
for the employment of capital. In circulation and 
banks, and on hand in individual coffers, there are, 
by the best official estimates, two hundred and 
fifty million dollars. Agriculture, even the plant- 
ing and great staples, as well as the provision 
growing, affords too small profit to induce invest- 
ment in it in any shape. Commerce is perhaps 
more overdone than agriculture, and offers as little 
inducement to capitalists to turn capital into it. 
The retail business is weighed down by competi- 
tion, as well as the wholesale and importing; ship- 
ping is already too numerous, and freights too low 
to invite investments in that way ; what stocks are 
good are bought up in England, and what are 
doubtful cannot induce real capitalists, scarcely the 
reckless speculators. Who that sees the country 
groaning under agricultural products, the parade of 
goods in all the streets of all the towns, and the 
doubtful character of most of the stocks, would 
invest in them 1 All the extension now given to 
agriculture is a case of necessity ; simply for that 
sort of scant support and meagre independence that 
a farming life gives ; to raise, as the western men 
say, hog and hominy, and mayhap, chickens and 
vegetables, and eat them ; and spinning linsey, and 
wearing it. The two hundred and fifty millions 
above named, then, is without any permanent 
object of investment, and might be induced into any 
new channel of business, if a prospect of profit and 
permanency ran together. It might well be em- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 37 

ployed, under a protecting tariff, in machinery, and 
developing our iron and coal, or any other branches 
requiring an outfit of machinery and stock. 

Should a judicious protecting tariff be passed 
by our congress, establishing a fixed policy, and 
offering sufficient inducement to manufacturers, not 
only our own capital would be turned in, but any 
amount that we might want would come from 
England. This would be the more desirable, 
because it would be an accumulation or addition to 
that amount, bring its skill with it, and go to work 
on a sure basis. Nothing is wanting to draw 
money from England, where it is worth only two 
or three per cent., but a permanency and stability 
in our policies and laws. We have every motive, 
therefore, to cease our versatile course, and settle 
down in a way to give confidence to our institutions 
and pursuits. Confidence, permanency, and profits, 
are all necessary to induce capitalists to invest and 
give their attention as well as their money. 

Whenever a proper object presents itself, and a 
certainty of profit is held out in this country, an in- 
genious, thrifty people, such as we are, would never 
want capital, were it five times as scarce as it 
is. Profit is a magic creative term in this country, 
and calls up capital in the shape of credit, labor, 
and materials for preparation ; and when the fix- 
tures and machinery are made, the establishment 
carries itself on. Naked or mere labor, pledged 
under circumstances where almost certain profits 
await it, becomes capital, and serves until the 



38 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

profits return upon it in the shape of a realization. 
When credit is connected with a real transaction, 
and avoids speculation, it soon becomes the capital 
needed, and thus any vacuum in that respect is 
filled up and supplied. Credit and labor seem to 
double back on their own operations, and become 
all the reality of capital, as soon as some certainty 
be given to the prospect of profits. In verification 
of this, we will find many instances around us. 
When the growth of a city, for instance, requires 
more houses, they spring up like magic, and are the 
fruits of labor, with almost no capital in the shape 
of money. When the great West wanted 300 
steamboats to meet its increasing commerce, and 
had not one dollar with which to build them, labor 
and materials came forward, aided by credit, 
and soon put the boats afloat, and that whilst the 
timid were wondering how it was to be done. So 
it would be in the case of manufactures, if the pro- 
tection were given. I have seen a whole cotton 
crop in the south purchased by bills drawn on 
time or credit, and the cotton go forward and be 
sold to meet them, without any active capital being 
at all consumed in the operation. 

Our banks have a wish at this time to do busi- 
ness, and make loans ; and they would be ready to 
aid any safe and real transaction. They have suf- 
fered so much by speculators and adventurers, that 
they would naturally incline to favor any industrial 
operation' going on in their neighborhood ; and, 
with their positive means and unlimited credit. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 39 

could furnish any amount of capital wanted for 
legitimate purposes. We are now on the upward 
spring of business, with much credit, and without 
any runs on banks, or want of confidence in each 
other ; all which circumstances would draw money 
out of banks to any extent, for certain business, 
without creating any alarm, and also from such 
capitalists as did not choose to invest in manufac- 
turing, and required interest only. The friends, 
therefore, of manufactures, have no fears as to the 
sufficiency of capital, if the protection were had, 
and a confidence lit up as to the permanency of the 
policy. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CAPACITY AND INTELLIGENCE. 

The citizens of the United States are noted for 
their practical shrewdness and inventive genius. 
The daily manifestations of skill and contrivance 
in executing difficult works, strike all who look 
abroad and witness such operations. The man- 
agement and contrivance of the Yankees are pro- 
verbial, and their tact in bringing things to bear on 
or fit one another. They have more tact in getting 
up a business, more contrivance in carrying it on. 
and more invention to aid its operation, than any 
other people. New inventions, new machinery. 



40 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and new principles, are continually announced. 
Godfrey, Rittenhouse, Fulton, Evans, Whitney, 
Whitmore, Reed, Brewster, Bigelow, and a hun- 
dred others, have added invaluable improvements 
to mechanics, and aids to labor. In all factories 
and shops, as well as in the patent office, do we 
find records and samples of these inventions in 
practical operation. No prejudice, or heavy pre- 
vious investments in old forms, lie in the way of 
adopting all improvements here, and making them 
immediately available. We feel the necessity of 
using the best to enable us to compete with older 
nations, where wages are lower and more skill en- 
gaged. The English are slowwto adopt any new 
invention ; having three hundred millions invested 
in old machinery, they dislike to throw it away, 
and fear to change that fixed and monotonous habit 
which their operatives have got into, in connection 
with old machinery. The English proprietor 
goes for dividend, and knows nothing new, cares 
not for it, or studies its operation. The operatives 
under him are ground down to minimum wages, 
and with the heavy excise taxes upon them, can't 
stop to invent, or think enough about forms to strike 
out any new idea; indeed, reject all that are offer- 
ed as hazardous, and likely to lead to some change 
or suspension of his wages. 

Our free institutions give to the minds of our 
people much elasticity and independence of thought. 
They are habitually accustomed to inquire, exam- 
ine every thing, and combine whatever materials 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 41 

they have to do with, in all ways most natural and 
effectual. This habit of inquiry and freedom of 
thought appertains to all, even the operator and 
common mechanic, who have not only this vigor of 
intellect thus cherished, but time to think and ex- 
periment much, because his wages are good and 
the means of living so certain and easy that he 
can afford to hazard something. It is generally 
the common mechanic or operator who is with and 
near the machinery that makes or suggests im- 
provements, and most of the valuable patents and 
inventions issue from such persons. A country of 
free institutions, unprejudiced feelings, and easy 
and cheap means of living, can afford to pause from 
intense daily operations to think and invent. An 
intelligence runs here with the mass, and imparts 
not only an aptitude for mechanical or factory 
operations, but gives character to the laborers, and 
leads to a confidence between the employers and 
the operatives that is worth much. Hence much of 
what is performed is job work, implying character 
and confidence, and stimulates the laborer to do 
nearly twice as much as the mere hireling. The 
character or quality of the laborers are worth as 
much or more than any difference in wages to the 
proprietors and the country. The English opera- 
tor is a wagon horse, and a slow one at that, work- 
ing moodily and slowly for his food and rags of 
clothing ; cares not for results, and has no spring, 
no hopes, no aspirations beyond the dull routine. 
This quality of our labor, based upon intellect and 



42 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

character, will put the world under contribution 
when rightly started, and working under a certain- 
ty of a market and a permanent policy. 

We have the activity of body as well as of the 
mind to subserve us in manufacturing operations. 
Our people have an elastic spring, leading to much 
quickness and continuity in their action, and are 
more hardy, and can endure more than the Eng- 
lish. Their greater quickness in action is mani- 
fested in handling things, such as arms, shooting, 
ship tackle, sailing ships, firing cannon, chopping 
wood, and any manufacturing operations requiring 
manipulation. We beat the world in sailing ships, 
fishing, and moving from place to place. In our 
manufactories often, English and Americans are 
both working together, and invariably do the na- 
tives execute more than foreigners, particularly in 
job work. This greater action arises in part from 
our climate, which is of a dry, sunny, exciting 
character; and from the sudden and continual 
changes, the constitution becomes tough, and the 
muscles elastic and pliant. We are not so round 
of limb, and of so full a person as the English, but 
have more of the active, hardy, available qualities. 
Our people eat more animal food, exercise more, 
live more in the open air, or out doors ; and move 
over more space in transacting ordinary business 
than the Europeans, and thence acquire a quicker 
and more enduring action. The detached settle- 
ments of this country, obliges us to travel much 
and move over great space in transacting our busi- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 43 

ness, embracing many remote points and changes 
in climate. At sea, Cape Horn is not even a resting- 
place ; and China, South America, and Europe, 
common trading places. On land, from New Or- 
leans to Maine, from New York to Missouri, from 
the upper lakes of Canada to Charleston and the 
Gulf, and the threading of our great western rivers 
and wide opening prairies, are common trips, un- 
dertaken annually by thousands of our commonest 
citizens, on some sort of business or speculation. 
The clearing away of our numerous forests, and 
the bulk of our population being engaged in agricul- 
ture, has contributed no little to this hardy and quick 
action. No matter whence it arises, we feel cer- 
tain that we do possess it, and need only a fair 
opportunity, a proper inducement, to draw it out 
and make it available for national wealth and in- 
dividual comfort. We intended the term capacity, 
in this chapter, to embrace our bodily and mental 
qualifications only, in regard to a successful manu- 
facturing operation, and shall not crowd under it 
here any other aids and qualifications we may 
possess, or our country furnish, to aid the policy. 



CHAPTER X. 

RAW MATERIALS. 



We have raw materials in great variety an d of 
the best quality, in the United States, to aid the 



44 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

whole routine of manufacturing operations. The 
raw materials enter into such a business to the 
extent of one fourth of the capital employed, with 
Europeans living remote from them ; and they have 
to keep, for their own safety, a stock on hand equal 
to that extent, which of course swells their capital, 
and is a disadvantage to them. When a people 
have all the raw materials in abundance around 
them, it seems to invite them to manufactures, if their 
circumstances suit, and to make it a sort of duty to 
work them up and avail themselves of them. The 
God of nature seems to have thrown them in their 
way for wealth and comfort ; and if their politicians 
do not insure the proper employment of them they 
should stand condemned for a dereliction of their 
duty. 

It never could be intended, in the nature of 
things, long at a time, that tw T o freights, two 
storages, two commissions, and two profits, should 
be paid or sustained in any case, and ought not to 
be so. Take the case of cotton, wiiich is grown 
here. It has to be put up by strong compression, 
perhaps injuring its quality; encounters a freight, 
storage, commission, profit, and a duty, in going 
out to England; and more and similar charges 
up to Manchester, and the same charges back 
again here, on its return in the shape of textures 
for our consumption. All these charges swell the 
cost of the raw material, which we would avoid in 
the main, and to that extent stand on the vantage 
ground over England. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 45 

We have cotton in unlimited quantity, and of the 
best quality, which is now a very important and 
leading raw material in the manufactures of the 
age. No nation can compete with us in producing 
this article, and nothing can occur to intercept its 
continued production or diminish its volume. We 
can supply ourselves, and all other countries in ad- 
dition, without any more effort or higher price. 
We have the climate, soil, skill, and the sort of 
labor suited to its culture, and, if we wished to do 
so, could not, dare not, quit its cultivation. If we 
were to make the ten million dollars worth of cot- 
ton goods that we now import, it would only re- 
quire about sixty thousand bales more of our cot- 
ton, out of a crop of two million bales, which 
would not much impair our export of the article, 
and would leave us enough to put Europe under 
contribution, for they must have it. When I say 
that Europe must have our raw cotton, I mean that 
it is her interest to take it, because it will be the 
cheapest and best. We will continue to grow it 
cheaper than any other people, and such will be 
the competition among the spinners of Europe, that 
no one will dare to give a bounty for cotton, or pay 
more for it than their neighbor, or lay a tax upon 
it. Every pound of the raw cotton that we might 
spin under a proper protection will be our own ; 
and were we to impart the five additional values 
to the raw which the wrought amounts to, it would 
be all that clear, and done by a population that 
would be otherwise idle and producing nothing. 



46 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

Innumerable are the advantages resulting from the 
possession of so valuable a raw material as cotton. 
Besides those named above, it would contribute no 
little to our independence as a nation, and put us 
in possession of an article by the aid of which we 
might paralyze Europe any year we pleased, or 
force from her any terms we might insist upon for 
the advantage of our shipping and commerce. I 
will speak more particularly hereafter of our cotton 
crop, and the influence it exerts upon our labor 
and income. 

The raw material of iron is without limit also 
in this country, and stands in value perhaps even 
ahead of cotton. Iron is the right hand of human 
operations, and a sine qua non in fact in all the 
arts, comforts, and even luxuries of man. Did we 
not ourselves show the instance, I would have 
said no nation on earth is, or could be, inconside- 
rate enough, or so wanting to her own interests and 
independence as to import this indispensable article 
of human necessity. Tell an Englishman, or a 
Swede, or a Frenchman, or even a Russian, that such 
a nation exists, pretending to the arts and sciences, 
and a high degree of civilization and prosperity, 
and they would not suppose it possible, and scout 
the very idea. Every thing stands arrested 
at the very threshold of advancement without 
this very necessary aid — this Samson of the age 
— that supports all fabrics, from a plough up to a 
ship, a bridge, or a house, and takes the place of 
wood and stone in all our operations. It is equally 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 47 

necessary to the fine arts, and our comforts and 
luxuries in the small every day concerns and fix- 
ings. How could any nation — how did we dare go 
to war with a powerful nation — dare to put on a 
non-intercourse with the world, without this indis- 
pensable raw material 1 When I speak of iron as 
a raw material in abundance, I mean the ore, 
which lies unwrought in the bowels of the earth, 
whilst our wise politicians are importing from 
Europe nearly one half that we use. There is 
scarcely a state in this Union, except the alluvial 
of Louisiana, and the flat prairies of Illinois, but has 
plenty of iron ore. Mountains of it lie untouched 
in Missouri ; the compass will not traverse for it 
in parts of Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Penn- 
sylvania, New- York, New- Jersey, Vermont, New- 
Hampshire, Maryland, Virginia, particularly, show 
it in quantities that would serve the whole world 
for ages, and of a quality unsurpassed. No deep 
mining or drifting becomes necessary to work it ; 
lying on the surface every where, it seems to invite 
attention. From New England to Arkansas, from 
the Northern Lakes to the Gulf, from Pennsylvania 
to Missouri, it abounds ; and along side of it the fuel 
and other facilities to work it. The reason that 
we do not work iron up to our want without pro- 
tection is, the large capital it requires for furnaces, 
blasts, ore beds, fuel, and much machinery of a 
complicated and particular sort, and the want of 
skill necessary to the operation. Our indepen- 
dence as a nation, as w T ell as our interests and com- 



48 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

forts, is immediately concerned in the abundant 
supply of iron; and our government should imme- 
diately insure its production, by a duty high 
enough and permanent enough to satisfy all, and 
leave no doubt of success. This age more than the 
past cries aloud for iron, because the application of 
it is endlessly varied. That nation that has not 
iron, or pays two prices for it, is sure to be thrown 
aback in the great progress of the arts and of civil- 
ization. Those who possess it will pass her by, and 
laugh at the folly that placed or kept her in that 
condition. Iron, more iron, give us iron, is the cry 
of all who aim to ameliorate the condition of man, 
or make useful and permanent improvements. 

We have fuel of every sort in any abundance, 
which is in the nature of a raw material, or at least 
it subserves the manufacturing of all raw materi- 
als. Our forests are in a manner unbroken, and 
furnish charcoal or crude wood without price, for all 
the purposes to which it may be applicable, and 
always right alongside of the iron, lead, and cop- 
per. Centuries will not make scarce this common 
and primitive fuel, which for certain operations an- 
swers better than stone coal, particularly in mak- 
ing tough bar iron. These forests spread before 
the door of every individual; from which he derives 
comfort and warmth ; and surround every manufac- 
turing village with their facilities and comforts. 
Stone coal underlays nearly one fifth part of the 
United States. You may travel in the West fif- 
teen hundred miles in length by five hundred in 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 49 

breadth over a bituminous coal mine of the very 
best sort and easily got at, frequently without any 
mining or sinking a shaft, because it stares you in 
the face above the lowest levels of the country. 
Many detached beds of the same are found near 
Richmond in Virginia, Cumberland in Maryland, and 
Blossberg in Pennsylvania, large enough for the 
supply of ages. Anthracite abounds in Pennsylva- 
nia, lying above the ground in mountain masses 
of the best and purest sort, and inexhaustible in quan- 
tity. Coal at the mine can be delivered for sixty 
cents to a dollar a ton, and carried cheaply to any 
point where it may be wanted. The manufactur- 
ing villages should be located at the entrance to 
the mines, where fuel will always be at minimum 
prices. Nations in the world are advanced, and 
wealthy or powerful, exactly in proportion as they 
work and develope their coal and iron. England 
has put the whole world under contribution by her 
coal and iron, and has made money enough to pur- 
chase the half of mankind if she chose. 

We have lead in more abundance than any por- 
tion of the globe, and have fortunately worked and 
developed it without any further protection, for the 
simple reason that it required very little capital or 
skill to prepare it. An Irishman or Yankee digs 
it with his hands, and smelts it upon fires made 
with logs of wood, without any assistance from skill 
or capital. The case of iron and lead shows us, in a 
strong and convincing way, the difference in get- 

5 



50 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

ting up something without skill and capital, and 
another thing requiring both ; the one will be done 
like the handicrafts, and the other left undone un- 
til protection gives the proper inducement. We 
are now not only producing lead up to our own 
wants, but exporting a great deal of it to Europe, 
and even to China. 

We have plenty of copper ore in Illinois, Mis- 
souri, and Michigan, and are beginning to work it. 
This operation is slow, because it requires more 
skill and capital to mine for it and smelt it than 
the lead business ; hence we wait for a protection 
that will promise permanency. On the shores of 
Lake Superior there is said to be copper enough for 
the world. As soon as ordinary manufactures 
gain protection and confidence enough to start, this 
copper will be found ready to aid them as a raw 
material to any extent, and, as lead, may become 
an article for export. 

We have all the salts constituting the raw ma- 
terial, particularly the alkalis, saltpetre, alum, 
copperas, common salt of soda ; and they could be 
soon combined into the shapes wanted for man- 
ufactures, including the acids. 

We have the marbles of every variety and 
beauty, the limestones, the granites, the slates, the 
magnesias, the gypsums, the silex or sand, and the 
clays, such as the alumina for the acids and salts, 
the kaolins for fine wares, the plastic and fire clays 
for all purposes. The acids, the gases, and salts 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 51 

can all be made here to subserve any quantity of 
manufactures that we may enter upon, and most 
probably for export. 

We have gold in quantity, covering five hundred 
miles square, and mixing in the soil ; some silver, 
plenty of cobalt and zinc, and many precious stones 
worth working into the arts. This native gold be- 
ing pure, is suited to the arts better than coin, 
which is mixed with alloy. Tin is the only useful 
metal that is not yet found in this country, and 
would constitute the only exception to the long 
catalogue of things necessary to the most extended 
manufactures, unless diamonds be reckoned. 

Besides woods for fuel, we have a great and un- 
limited variety of them for the arts, and particular- 
ly for the cabinet-maker, carriage- maker, house- 
joiner, ship-builder, and even for the construction of 
the smaller ornamental articles of luxury. The 
dye-stuffs, to a great extent, are found naturally 
growing, and should our manufactures start into a 
capital existence, pari passu with them, and, as a 
part of the system, indigo, madder, woad, cochineal, 
and the earths so used, would be immediately pro- 
duced,! not only for the demand, but for exporta- 
tion. 

We have wool, or can have it, in abundance. 
Already the cultivation of that article nearly meets 
our wants, and, having all the varieties of sheep 
now under cultivation, it can soon swell up to any 
demand, and leave a large surplus for exportation. 
We see, therefore, that the same stimulus that 



52 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

would start manufactures, would give an impulse 
to many raw materials even for exportation, after 
supplying the home market. We have also fur, 
collected from a wide extent of country, extending 
across the Rocky Mountains to the very Pacific. 
Hair, also, and bristles, and whalebone, abound here 
as raw materials, subserving many of the arts in 
a way to meet even the luxuries of a people. 

We are now commencing the silk culture, and 
have already proved that we can grow it of a bet- 
ter quality than Europe, and to any extent. The 
climate favors the insect, as well as the mulberry 
tree upon which it feeds. A little more induce- 
ment would pour forth silk enough to clog the mar- 
kets of the world, after meeting our own wants, 
and, very probably, without such further induce- 
ment it will be done. This culture does not require 
much capital, and the skill is soon acquired. On 
the principle of the handicrafts, therefore, it will 
succeed, and engage the labor of women and chil- 
dren, without calling them off from their farms and 
houses, as other manufactures would have to do, 
in order to secure their services, and be for that 
reason preferred. 

We have the lints to any extent, particularly 
flax and hemp, and are already doing much in their 
production, especially the latter, and in the work- 
ing of it up into fabrics. Flax grows well, and be- 
sides its lint furnishes to the arts the oil and cake. 

We have all the oils, and lard, and sperm, and 
stearin, already produced for export, and standing 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 53 

ready to subserve any extent of manufacturing 
operations or the arts that may be instituted, for 
lights, lubrication, ordinary grease, or any combi- 
nation that they may enter into. These materials 
are cheaper and more abundant in this country than 
any other, and are now exported to a great extent. 
We have tobacco, which is a raw material in 
many respects, and sugar and rice, which enter into 
many operations requiring the art of the manufac- 
turer or chemist. The medicinal vegetables grow 
well here, such as rhubarb, the castor bean, jalap, 
senna, and many others. In all abundance we have 
alcohol and spirits, and all the grains suited to beer 
and to them. All the above enumerated long list of 
raw materials are so universally distributed, that 
every district either possesses them or lies in reach 
of them; and on all would the saving of freights, 
storages, commissions, profits, and insurances, that 
we spoke of above, be saved in a way to give 
signal advantages to our manufacturers over all 
others. These raw materials will be in better or- 
der, and in a sounder condition, when used fresh 
and near the place where produced, than after en- 
countering long sea voyages, and damps, and dirt, 
incident to much handling and rolling about. The 
cotton, particularly, after the high pressure neces- 
sary to a European voyage, has to be at some ex- 
pense opened out with pickers, and restored to its 
flos state and life again. 



54 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



CHAPTER XI. 

PROVISIONS, WATER POWER, TAXES, POOR LAWS, 
MACHINERY. 

We have provisions more abundant, cheaper^ 
and of a better quality in this country, than any other 
in the world. This is no small advantage in manu- 
facturing operations. The operatives are comfort- 
able and happy, and can work, if necessary, cheap- 
er where provisions are so cheap and abundant, 
than in countries differently circumstanced. We 
would be saved that continual distress that the 
laborers of Europe are subjected to, by the scar- 
city and high price of provisions. Good order and 
contentment in the operatives work well in manu- 
factures, and render labor doubly efficient. The 
aid that our teeming agriculture would give to our 
manufacturers, would be deeply felt in the realiza- 
tion of comfort, good order, and happiness among 
the operatives ; and would, as now at Lowell, pre- 
sent scenes that would please instead of shock 
humanity or the moralist. 

In no country does water power more abound 
than in the United States. As it costs less than 
steam power for heavy and permanent operations, 
it would give us much advantage. At the head of 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 55 

navigation in all our rivers, from Maine to Alaba- 
ma, and immediately connected with health, ship 
or steamboat navigation, there are falls in all our 
rivers ; at each of which, not less than fifty, might 
a Manchester be built, as far as power is concern- 
ed. In the West also they abound, particularly near 
Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Zanesville, Akron, Dayton, 
Rock Island, on Rock River, Fox River, Desmoines, 
Osage, Muscle Shoals of Tennessee, Harpeth, and 
on the Wabash River. These powers are of the 
best, most permanent, and easily applied. Most of 
these water privileges, too, are in regions noted for 
their fertility, and affording a large consuming pop- 
ulation near them; and, as we have said, have navi- 
gation facilities to carry off the goods and bring 
the raw materials to their proper markets. 

The expenses of our government are infinitely 
less than in England and France, and of course 
taxes must be in proportion in the two countries. 
Our taxes are not high enough to become excise, 
or to reach the poll in this country ; and, falling on 
real estate or capital, are less felt by laborers. In 
England, a vast weight of this taxation becomes 
excise, and falls on the poor and operatives, and 
must not only affect wages but comforts in a 
great degree. In working down wages in that 
country to the minimums, from excessive competi- 
tion, they must leave enough for bare subsistence, 
and in the ascending scale meet this millstone of 
taxation that hangs around the necks of all. The 
grinding taxation of the government is heard and 



56 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

felt as much or more in proportion in the hovels of 
the poor, in their wages, than in the halls of the 
rich. All this difference, therefore, in the burthens 
of the two countries, in the prices of provisions and 
the costs of raw materials, redounds to the advan- 
tage of this country, and places us conspicuously on 
the vantage ground. 

The poor laws and tithes of England are a 
further burthen, on the capitalist particularly. 
When the proprietors of the manufacturing villages 
and cities of that country come to add, at the end 
of the year, the thousands that they pay to broken 
down operatives, who all gain a parish settlement, 
and the charity necessary to the support of turn- 
outs and suspension or slack working of their mills, 
it no little swells the amount of wages. Scarcely 
any of the operatives in England realize any thing 
for old age, and, when it comes, lean on the poor 
rates. Thousands of them have no providence or 
saving qualities, even if their wages admitted of it, 
because they spend it all in drink. Not only the 
men, but women and children, attend the gin-shops 
of nights and Sundays, and spend their last cent, 
until they not only become fit subjects for a poor- 
house, but hospitals. They contract the habit 
until they are sots, if they have surplus pennies 
enough to enable them to do it, and then become 
thrown out of employment, but still are subjects for 
the poor laws and charities. This habit not only 
adds to the burthens of taxes, but deeply affects 
the quality and character of the labor in that coun- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 57 

try; for you will see men at work, stupid from the 
revels of the over night or Sunday, sullen and mo- 
rose, caring nothing for the interests of the employ- 
er, and giving no character to their work. It is 
widely different in America, where active, smart 
men and women, with substance and character at 
home, go into the factories, and give character to 
every operation. They are educated, religiously 
moral, truthful, trustworthy, and, by doing job- 
work, earn more wages in the day in pushing the 
work and giving close attention. They save money, 
realize wealth, arid increase their comforts, suf- 
ficiently to enable most of them to establish them- 
selves in society with respectability. They never 
think of poor-rates, and by their character are 
placed entirely above them. This difference in the 
labor of the two countries is worth millions. 

Machinery tends to equalize labor and wages. 
The Americans are proverbial for their inventions 
in machinery, and their tact in adopting any and 
all improvements made, and having them of the 
very best sort and latest invention. When a five 
hundred horse-power works in aid of human labor, 
requiring only a few to attend it, and doing the 
work of a thousand, the wages of the few attend- 
ants, however they may differ in the detail, be- 
come of little consequence in the grand operation. 
In such a case, we look to results rather than small 
differences, and place the American alongside of 
the Englishman. Rents, too, are higher in Eng- 
land than in this country, and become an increased 



58 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

charge on both labor and capital. When we come 
to sum up and realize all these advantages, they more 
than make up any difference in the mere wages of 
the two countries, and place us decidedly on the 
vantage ground in regard to manufacturing opera- 
tions. 



CHAPTER XII. 

FACILITIES OF COMMERCE, INTERCOMMUNICATIONS, AND 
INTERCHANGES IN AID OF MANUFACTURES. 

The commerce of the United States is active 
and well organized ; and stands ready to aid manu- 
factures, in bringing to them the raw material and 
provisions, and in carrying off and distributing 
the goods to the consuming markets, at home and 
abroad. This commerce takes up the foreign and 
coasting trade with equal facility, despatch, and 
cheapness, and becomes active or enlarged, as re- 
quired for any legitimate purpose. We have per- 
fected also many long lines of intercommunication, 
by railroads, canals, and steamboat lines : thus 
giving all possible facility to our internal trade and 
home market. These, like the arteries of the sys- 
tem, diffuse wealth and trade every where, and 
carry supplies of provisions, raw materials, and 
manufactured goods wherever wanted or consumed. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 59 

The articles made thus, without accumulation, or 
much expense or delay, find their ultimate market. 
These gigantic works connect the raw material 
districts with the manufacturing — the producing 
districts with the consuming — the Atlantic states 
with the Mississippi valley — the northern lakes 
with the Gulf of Mexico ; reducing transportation 
to the minimum, and enabling every part of the 
interior to procure and consume up to their ability. 
Such a system stimulates not only production, but 
promotes consumption, by throwing all within the 
reach of all ; and carries a creative influence along 
with it to the very Ultima Thule, to originate new 
cultures, develope new resources, and increase 
both production and consumption. It brings things 
into value and usefulness that lay untouched be- 
fore such a facility was extended, and widely en- 
larges our available means. 

These intercommunications establish a system 
of beautiful trade and interchanges throughout the 
whole extent of the United States. This system 
works free and brotherly : no revenue laws or im- 
posts lie across its free paths and open channels, to 
avert or interrupt its current of trade. No vexa- 
tious custom-house crew to overhaul parcels^ ques- 
tion invoices, and worry all concerned. Each state 
and district barters freely with its neighbors, pours 
forth its productions, and realizes its wants ad libi- 
tum. The tide of commerce and trade, swelled by 
a thousand tributary streams that continually flow 
in, acquires an overwhelming current — fertilizing 



60 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and enriching all as it flows onwards. Distance is 
nothing, and time scarcely estimated in such a ra- 
pid interchange, that like the sun sheds forth its 
light and heat, vivifying all ; not a wandering, flar- 
ing, uncertain comet, that appears once in an age, 
and brings alarm and disease rather than health 
and cheerfulness. The United States, by these 
aids, will be to each other what the several nations 
of Europe might be to one another, without any 
restrictive systems, custom-houses, countervailing 
laws, and cherished jealousies. 

Let us regard a picture of these states, in bro- 
therly feeling mutually dependent upon each other, 
all united, and enriching each other by a mutual 
interchange of wants and productions. Nothing 
in the prospective can more delight the patriot than 
such a scene — such a pledge of prosperity and com- 
fort. The different districts and states through 
such a medium will pour forth their peculiar pro- 
ducts into the great mart. Louisiana its sugar and 
indigo ; the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mis- 
sissippi, their mighty volume of cotton ; Kentucky 
and Virginia their tobacco ; Missouri and Kentucky, 
hemp ; Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, lead and cop- 
per ; Ohio, West New York and Pennsylvania, 
flour, wheat, butter, cheese, and live stock ; the 
newer states along with Ohio, pork, lard and beef; 
Vermont, the hills of New England and Pennsyl- 
vania, wool and silk ; New England, New York, 
and Pennsylvania, manufactured goods in every 
variety ; Pennsylvania and the West, coal and iron, 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 61 

and the manufactures based upon them; North 
Carolina and Maine, lumber ; New York, foreign 
goods and productions; New England, their fishe- 
ries ; the Far West, its furs. All places, districts, and 
corners will send out what they may have peculiar 
or surplus ; whether of agricultural, manufactur- 
ing, commercial, mining, or the forest productions ; 
whether of nature or art. How grand will roll on 
the tide of wealth and trade ! how pleasing and 
absorbing the very contemplation of such a scene ! 
the lights and shadows of such a picture ! 

It would seem to convince a stranger that a na- 
tion that had done so much for its internal trade, 
and the intercourse of the people, was deeply en- 
gaged in manufacturing and supplying its own wants 
through such mediums. What would be the sur- 
prise, however, when told that all this was done to 
facilitate foreign trade, and to let into our very bo- 
som all foreign articles of manufacture! We shall 
have been working for foreigners unless we protect 
our own industry sufficiently to avail ourselves of 
these works. As things now stand we give all possi- 
ble facility to the introduction of foreign goods that 
we ought to make ourselves ; and not only invite 
them by' low duties to our shores, but diffuse them 
to every part in a certain and cheap way. We have 
taxed ourselves hundreds of millions to make these 
canals and railroads, to let strangers enjoy them, and 
through them to paralyze our industry and draw 
from our very bowels our last cent. We have been 
working for others; have been straining our credit, 



62 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

making debts and loans enough to both disgrace us 
and grind down our posterity into the very dust for 
the benefit of other nations. Instead of our own 
articles and goods being carried on them, we open 
them to strangers, whom we meet in the remotest 
interior, not only availing themselves of our works 
to prostrate our industry with their goods, but laugh- 
ing at our simplicity, insulting our forbearance, and 
claiming to have us for eternal customers. The debts 
the states have contracted abroad, unless counteract- 
ed by encouraging our own industry at home, will 
reduce us to mere colonies of England for the next 
age. Paying twelve or fifteen millions interest abroad 
annually will take all our surplus money, and leave 
nothing for an increased wealth or comfort; fifty 
millions paid and expended at home would not be 
half as much felt, nor produce half the stagnation 
and privation. In such payments there is no remead, 
no return made of the money thus gone for ever : it 
doubles not back upon the exhausted country, and 
touches no new springs of industry to atone for the 
loss ; unlike the home expenditures, no matter how 
heavy, which are still in the country and a part of 
its wealth. Our works, therefore, doubly injure us 
unless we protect our own industry ; first, by let- 
ting our enemy, a very viper, into our bosom to 
flood us with worthless manufactures ; secondly, by 
having created this two hundred millions of foreign 
debt to sap our resources for ages, and disgrace us 
in the bargain. 

All the things and circumstances we have been 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 63 

enumerating show that we have the vantage 
ground over all the world in respect to manufac- 
tures, if we had a sufficiently protective tariff to 
start them. Our surplus labor, and the active, high, 
intelligent, moral character of it ; our varied raw 
materials ; our facility of intercommunication ' K our 
active commerce ; our capital ; our water power ; 
coal, iron, wood, lumber, cheap provisions, light 
taxes, poor laws, and tithes ; climate, savings in 
freight, profits, commissions, storage, insurances, 
machinery, inventive genius ; our home-consuming 
demand or market ; all these and many more 
prove to us, conclusively, that we do stand on the 
vantage ground, and have advantages over the 
whole world, at least as far as our home demand 
goes. 

Other circumstances bear upon this subject, and 
add still more to our advantages. The public debt of 
England is eight hundred million pounds, requiring 
an annual interest of fifty millions ; to which add 
eight millions poor-rates, ten millions tithes, and 
twenty millions for an excess of army and navy pen- 
sion, and civil list expenditures over and above what 
a moderate government ought to expend ; and it 
makes a burthen of eighty-eight million taxes annu- 
ally upon England. This enormous sum may be said 
to come first out of the profits of labor, before any div- 
idend or enjoyment be had from it. The manufactu- 
rers have to pay their proportion of that huge load, 
which must add to our advantages over her. We 
have but little national debt, few poor-rates, no 



6 I NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

tithes, a cheap government, and no excise or taxes 
that fall particularly on labor. We can use our own 
raw cotton without even the half-penny duty which 
it pays going into England, that enhances the price 
of the raw material that much, and must be greatly 
felt in the present low price of cotton. 

I will here venture a prophecy, that if England 
by a severe war places another hundred million of 
debt upon her already overloaded shoulders, she 
will lose all the markets of the world. We would 
be foremost in the process, if true to ourselves ; for 
she would be weighed down too low to compete 
with the active, free, and untaxed American, borne 
up by all the other advantages that we have enu- 
merated. England dares not engage in another 
continental war ; she knows the consequences. 

As a proof and an earnest that we can compete 
with England and all other countries in manufac- 
turing, if properly protected and started, I would 
cite the facts and prices growing out of the present 
condition of our operations in that field. Some 
articles under the war duties did get a proper start, 
so as to combine skill and capital both in their ope- 
rations. I will instance coarse cotton goods, lin- 
seys, satinets, glass, paper, shoes and boots, hats, 
carriages, cabinet and household furniture, planta- 
tion cutlery, leather, and a hundred small things 
of that sort. All these things now go on, to the 
exclusion of the foreign articles of that kind, up to 
our consumption, and are made cheaper and of a 
better quality than we ever had them from abroad. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 65 

We have done more than this in these articles, for 
we are actually shipping off large quantities of 
them, say eight million dollars worth annually, to 
all the world, particularly South America, West 
Indies, Levant, Africa, Calcutta, China, and even 
have sent some articles to England ; such as cotton 
drillings, clocks, stamped glass, wooden ware, car- 
riages, and so forth, which have sold to a profit, after 
encountering her high duties. Our articles are pre- 
ferred to the English in the other markets where 
we stand on an equal footing with her. This proves 
our capacity to manufacture, and it proves also how 
hard it is to induce capitalists to take hold, and in- 
spire confidence, whilst our policies are so vacilla- 
ting ; and that they are more afraid of the uncer- 
tain legislation on that subject, than of the capacity 
of our people. What is already stated and proved 
ought to determine our legislators to establish 
manufacturing by a proper protection, and give to it 
stability, so as to inspire confidence. 



CHAPTER XIII 

PROTECTION IS NOT A TAX ON CONSUMPTION LONG. 

We are told that "protection operates as a 
tax upon the consumer, is in the nature of a bounty 
to one class, and a corresponding tax on the other 

6 



(56 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

classes of society, and that did it not so operate it 
would be a mockery, and no inducement or protec- 
tion at all." This is true but for a short time only. 
I regard all tariff protection as intended to cover 
the loss of time necessary to start a new business, 
and the losses that often occur the first year or two, 
from the want of skill and experience. By insur- 
ing the capitalist that he would be in the end more 
than compensated for these sort of losses, he is in- 
duced to invest his money in machinery and prepa- 
rations. 

So many rush into the business, however, under 
the inducement, that as soon as a start be made, 
and skill acquired, competition in this active and 
enterprising country follows so rapidly, that the 
prices of the articles made are soon brought down 
as low as the imported. It is sure to be of a better 
quality than the foreign, because the manufacturer 
will not hazard his character and reputation upon 
which he will depend for life, in making a bad arti- 
cle to be sold and consumed at home. In the sup- 
plying of remote markets, dishonesty is often prac- 
tised in putting up bad or faulty goods. The 
price and quality of the goods, after competition 
shall have had its effects, are so low and good that 
the difference much more than pays back the 
tax paid for the protection the first few years. 
This is now verified in the case of such articles as 
we enumerated in the last chapter, whose differ- 
ence in price and quality are both vastly in favor 
of the home production of them. It is becoming 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 67 

true of many others, as fast as skill and experience 
are combined under an active competition : woollen 
and iron goods, and a higher class of cottons will 
soon be in the same situation, and ready to pay us 
back the costs of protection. If we pay five or ten 
per cent, more for two years than we had been in 
the habit of paying before for goods, and get them 
two per cent, cheaper for a hundred years there- 
after than we previously did, we will be gainers as 
to price, gainers in the quality, gainers in the stead- 
iness and certainty of the supply, and gainers in the 
consequent wealth and independence of the coun- 
try. Our supply then will be exempt from the 
hazards of war, the risks of foreign voyages, and 
the liability to impositions so unscrupulously prac- 
tised upon strangers. Our commerce will have the 
carrying of it, our agriculturists vastly profit by 
having a home market, and our capital be safely 
invested. 

I would go so far on the principle of protection 
and bounty as to assert, that there are cases that 
do arise in most countries, where a government 
should use money or credit in loaning the means, 
or giving bounties to enterprising citizens, to ena- 
ble them to start some branches of business, such 
as iron and the woollens, that are so necessary to 
the independence and comfort of all countries. 
When it is pretty clearly ascertained that these 
branches would not be developed by individuals, 
government funds might be used in bounties, in 
order to insure their production, and the conse- 



68 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

quent wealth, comfort, and independence, that 
would be realized from them. For instance, if it 
were demonstrable that one million would start 
some lines of business altogether beyond individual 
means, and that this million would in a few years 
make two millions, it would follow that it would 
be a good stroke of policy to do it, and thus de- 
velope valuable productions. If the million in those 
circumstances should make no profit, only secure 
its eventual return, still it would be good policy to 
thus use it. 

I will now suppose a case where the price of 
the protected article would be always ten per 
cent, higher than the foreign one, and still show 
that it would be sound policy to grant a protection, 
and the country would be benefited in paying that 
much more continually for the article. This seems 
at the first blush a paradox ; but on the following 
hypothesis is proved. Suppose we want ten mil- 
lions more of goods than we make, and have plenty 
of idle people, raw material and capital to produce 
them, but so as to make them worth eleven millions, 
or one million more than the foreign ; the produ- 
cing of them saves us nine millions, the whole less 
the advance, nationally speaking, or saves, which 
would be the same thing, nine millions annually. 
Our gains would be more than this even, in the 
rounds, for we enable those idle persons to become 
consumers and useful, and agriculture is benefited 
by the home market to that extent, as well as a 
better condition of things insured. We do not 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 69 

really therefore lose the one million, the seeming 
difference, much less the nine, because the increased 
ability imparted, the more active interchanges, the 
employment of capital, the independence of the 
nation, the removing the clog to this extent from 
other occupations, all would be worth infinitely 
more than this million three times told. This is, 
however, an extreme case, and can't occur in these 
United States under our active competition, yet it 
proves principles. Should the fact be questioned 
that we do, by our own competition, put the prices 
down as low or lower than the foreign articles of 
the same sort, I would verify it by the prices cur- 
rent of the day in England and this country, on 
such articles as are fully established here, particu- 
larly such as are named in the preceding chapter. 
The sales we are every day making of those goods 
abroad, alongside of the English, and the prefer- 
ence given to them by the consumers, prove it 
When we bring the case home to our own country, 
the thing works more certainly still, because we 
always here have a tariff of twenty or thirty per 
cent, for-revenue, which without any regard to the 
principle of protection is all clear to our manufac- 
turer, and insures success to him after a fair start 
Why should any general law giving protection, 
or even a bounty, be regarded as partial, and taxing 
one, even temporarily, for the benefit of another? 
The law is open to all, and every individual in the 
community has an equal right to enter the lists and 
profit by it. If he does not avail himself of it, there 



70 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

is no cause for complaint ; it is a proof that he 
waves his right and gives way to others. Our po- 
liticians in this country show a great deal of dis- 
honesty and unfairness in cases like this, and try to 
pervert and strain facts to make the ignorant be- 
lieve they are oppressed, that they may make poli- 
tical capital out of it. The idea of monopoly is 
widely different from this, made of sterner stuff, 
and intended to favor an individual, or company, at 
the expense of the community. 

We are asked, why keep on the old tariff if the 
goods become as cheap as the foreign 1 I answer, 
that the tariff becomes a dead letter as to fair and 
honest prices, but is useful as a preventive to the 
designing. In all countries there are refuse goods, 
old stocks, unfashionable patterns, and even imper- 
fect goods. These have to be sold, and it is ex- 
pected at a great loss — but the owners will not 
sell them at home to affect injuriously their good 
market, but would send them here, were there no 
tariff, to be sacrificed, and injure our operations, 
England, after selling at home, as we have said, 
one hundred and eighty millions goods, for a good 
profit, sends off the twenty millions she has 
left to be sacrificed here. Having her profit al- 
ready, she cares not for the loss, rather delights 
in it, from a conviction that she has injured her 
rival, and possibly prostrated her ; for this ba- 
lance would be enough to ruin us, if thrown 
annually upon our market. The continuing the 
duties on, prevents this and keeps the mar- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 71 

ket steady. A country with as much capital as 
England, with interest worth only two or three per 
cent., might designedly collect a few millions an- 
nually to send goods here, with a view to prostrate 
our manufactories, and would find her account in 
it. Say not that this will never occur, when we 
see now a society existing in England, to get up 
tariff tracts against protection, and flood this coun- 
try with them, expressly to change our policy, or 
prevent our success as a rival. England fears not 
our sending goods there, for she can prevent that 
by a tariff; nor would the losing of our market 
ruin her, because she has other numerous markets ; 
but she foresees that under protection we would 
manufacture for the world, and take her markets 
from her. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

BUYING THINGS OR SPENDING MONEY HOME OR ABROAD 
IS WIDELY DIFFERENT. 

So that a thing is made and supplied at home, 
it matters but little whether it costs more or less. 
This is broad ground and needs some illustration, 
because if true it does away all the objections that 
can be offered to a protecting tariff. It makes all 
the difference to the country, taking in its rounds 
and interchanges of labor, and its capital, whether 



72 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

a dollar is laid out at home or abroad, in buying an 
article. When it goes to a foreign country to buy 
the thing, it is gone forever, and becomes the capi- 
tal or the dollar of that country, after it makes one 
operation only. Whereas if you lay out that dol- 
lar at home, in the neighborhood, or next village, or 
next state, or district, for an article, it remains in 
the country, and is still a part of the capital of the 
country. It does infinitely more than that, because 
it circulates and repeats its operation of buying an 
article perhaps one hundred times, possibly a thou- 
sand times, and in its rounds serves the purposes of 
a hundred or a thousand dollars, as the case may 
be. In the grand rounds of its circulation, it 
touches as many springs of industry as it does 
hands, and is all the time doing good. When it 
shall have done all this, or while it is doing all this, 
for the thing never ends, it is still a dollar, and 
counted properly among the dollars or the capital 
of the country. Figures can't calculate the differ- 
ence, therefore, in expending a dollar at home or 
abroad ; even the geometrical ratio can't accumu- 
late fast enough to realize this difference. It out- 
strips every thing but the human imagination in its 
progress. This vast difference has never occurred 
to our wisest politicians, much less our demagogues. 
Now if the article should cost ten per cent, more 
than the foreign, it is ten times made up in this 
grand rounds we have alluded to, by the rapid 
repetition of the thing. It is again made up in 
the way that prices tally or adapt themselves to 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 73 

one another. If the seller of the article gets a lit- 
tle more, he in his turn pays a little more to the 
laborers, and they a little more to the farmers, they 
a little more to the hands, and so on all around the 
circle, until a perfect equilibrium is not only restored, 
but kept up between all, and all prices quadrate into 
a perfect system, that in the rounds can't make the 
least difference as to the cost or difference of price. 
I would go so far as to allege and boldly say, that 
if a country bought all at home, and had nothing 
to do with foreign markets, it would make no dif- 
ference to it in the aggregate, or nationally speak- 
ing, what an article costs in reason. It would 
neither add to or impair her wealth or resources. 
The above point of view is worth much to politi- 
cal economy, and, if understood, would do away 
the slang and every day arguments of " Tax not 
one portion of the people for the benefit of the 
others." It does not operate so at all, even when 
a difference does seem apparent. On the other prin- 
ciple too the argument fails, as we have seen in a 
former chapter ; that is to say in the operation of 
skill and competition upon prices, when they shall 
have had time to act. On both the above princi- 
ples then there can be no danger, no loss nor tax 
in a protecting tariff. The country is sure to retain 
its capital, and have the price reasonable too, or 
so graduated as not to be felt. 

A part of the same argument is the slang ex- 
pression of " buying where we can the cheapest." 



74 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

This argument never looks beyond its nose, never 
once calculates the general effect of things, or takes 
in the resources, labor, independence, or capital of 
a country. It overlooks all those sacred duties 
that would go to give employment to all laborers, 
develope and bring into action new resources with- 
in reach, and save to a nation its capital or income, 
instead of wasting it in expenditures abroad. It 
is time the real worth of each and every argument 
was known and inquired into, so as to not take it 
as the pass-word of party, or of some district of 
country that did not understand its own interests, 
much less those of the whole nation. Our politi- 
cians do not realize the great and mighty difference 
in the result, where all work or only a part of the 
population. In this case, mathematics can scarcely 
keep up with results in its ordinary calculations. 
Suppose, for instance, that one-half of the laborers 
of a country meet the home supply in manufac- 
tures, agriculture, or any other department, and the 
other half idle ; and suppose, too, a market for 
what all could produce. The country is on a bal- 
ance and not advancing, this half merely meeting 
its own home supply, amounting say to one hun- 
dred millions worth. Now if the other half goes 
to work, or is induced to labor and make another 
hundred million, which finds a market abroad, 
would not this be a great, clear, and ample income, 
and enable that nation to save a hundred millions, 
and add it to its capital 1 It is clear it would ; 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 75 

and this sort of summing up shows the difference, 
according to a scale, where all or only a part work 
•or produce. 

No nation, no politicians or political economists 
ought to be content, as long as they see one idle 
person, whose circumstances require him to labor. 
All possible stimuli and inducements ought to be 
applied to rouse his ambition, and show him his 
interests and worth in the scale of productiveness. 
Two sorts of arguments take up mankind in rela- 
tion to the the tariff question. The one, this sort 
of slang demagogical pass- word of party, calcula- 
ted to catch the ear of the ignorant, and implant 
prejudices and impulses in their minds ; and the ar- 
guments that examine the real and true worth and 
bearing, in every aspect and shape in which the thing 
presents itself. The true statesman does this, but 
is too often met and defeated by the other class, 
backed by the ignorant, and too often, without their 
knowing it, by foreign interest. England has put 
these popular arguments into the mouths of our 
demagogues, and smiles at the manner in which 
the gudgeons take and serve her interest. Gener- 
ally speaking, our tariff laws could not have served 
our rivals better, if they had penned them them- 
selves, and presided in our councils and legislative 
assemblies. The English are too wise to attempt 
any thing through the Federal party, for there they 
would certainly have failed and alarmed the interests 
of this country. They chose rather to work through 
that party that hates England ; and seeing that they 



76 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

caught at these slang arguments, and made them 
popular by repeating them to the people, they rung 
them in all their changes, until they have almost 
ruined this country and its best interests. Even 
results and practical proofs have to give way to 
these popular notions, that become so obstinate and 
deep-rooted, that the very facts are either not ad- 
mitted, or strained into some other channel, and 
ascribed to causes that are really foreign to them, 
and had no agency in bringing them about. 

One portion of the world is continually sapping 
and impoverishing another, on the principle at the 
head of this chapter. England, Germany, and 
America, expend all of two hundred million dollars 
a year, by the best estimates, in France, particularly 
Paris; which sum is gone from those countries for 
ever, and constitutes the best resource of France. 
Other nations expend in Italy not less than one 
hundred million dollars a year, which is the princi- 
pal income of that country. Hindoostan and Ire- 
land are sapped dry by England, and their very 
heart's blood flows into London, and swells that 
overgrown metropolis. This is not only true of 
distinct countries, but parts of the same country. 
As soon as any point offers all possible inducements 
to pleasure and comfort, it becomes absorbing in 
its character, and drinks up all around it. London, 
Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburgh, Berlin, Rome, New- 
York, and many other points, draw all the resources 
for hundreds of miles around into their vortices, and 
appropriate them. If this be true of the ordinary 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 77 

expenditures regarding pleasures, enjoyments, and 
show, it is a hundred times more true of the great 
purchases and supply of manufactures and the arts. 
If the population be near enough to these absorb- 
ing points to have a daily market offered to them 
for provision supplies, they reciprocate more imme- 
diately with them, and get back as much as they 
expend ; but when a person lives more remote, and 
gathers up his money by rents or tradings with 
his neighbors, to expend away from them, it is 
felt ; and the process is impoverishing, because it 
has no remead or reciprocation in it. We almost 
dread to see a large fortune spring up in this coun- 
try, for it is sure to go off to France or England to 
be expended. If the person who made it by long 
savings in business does not go, his thoughtless 
heirs will. We are at work for Europe in more 
ways than one ; we not only pay her our last cent 
for her manufactures, but lose our capital in this 
way ; and will never scarcely accumulate enough 
for any great national purpose. 

The prices of things, not only in manufactures 
but agriculture, are not governed, as old writers 
say, and regulated by the cost of production, or the 
quantity of labor necessary to make them or pro- 
duce them, but by the demand for them. All the 
vibrations in the markets, the ups and downs of 
prices, are pretty much the result of a greater or 
less demand for the productions in question among 
the consumers. An overdone or clogged market is 
always a bad one ; and prices fall in consequence 



78 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

thereof. It is not the product of an acre, for in- 
stance, nor the cost of preparing it for cultivation, 
that constitutes the price of it, but the quantity of 
land in the market, and the demand for it. Land 
in England is worth five hundred dollars an acre, 
and in this country only one and a quarter to ten 
dollars. Corn or wheat, rather^ is worth in Eng- 
land two to three dollars a bushel — here only ninety 
cents. The same thing is true of all things ; they 
rise or fall, or remain stationary, accordingly as the 
market or the demand warrants. The only gov- 
erning quality as to wages is, that the laborer must 
have enough to subsist upon, or his operation ceases. 
Within that limit, however, he will often work on, 
without any other result, for his lifetime. His skill 
and habits are all shaped to that occupation, or the 
production of that article ; and he holds on, sinks or 
rises with the price of it, rather than change his hab- 
its and pursuit. No part of labor, then, can be said 
to govern or regulate the price of production, but 
that part relating to subsistence — all the remaining 
parts give w T ay to the market or demand, and are 
dependent on circumstances. Labor may be the 
foundation of all productive wealth ; and yet not 
be able to govern the prices of articles. It, like the 
unconscious parent, begets the offspring, but cannot 
foresee its value and fix its sterling worth. Labor 
is destined to stand on the lowest level of values, 
and struggle for bare support, because by the aid 
of machinery it can overdo all productions, glut all 
markets, and bring down the prices to this level. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 79 

It is a gloomy idea, and presents a sad picture, that 
in the run of things man is destined to sell himself 
for bread and clothes, and perhaps brown bread and 
rags at that. All that political economy can do is 
to keep up the platform of labor to its greatest pro- 
ductive availability, by giving the best market 
within its reach, and the best employment to it ; 
and if destined to sink, contrive that all shall keep 
together, and carry as much comfort with them as 
possible. 

The strongest case in illustration of the above 
principle, that nations who buy their supplies from 
abroad never accumulate capital, and all the time 
remain poor, is found in the history of these United 
States. We have had a valuable agricultural pro- 
duct all the time, including our staples, and have 
annually expended it abroad, in buying such things 
as we should have made at home, and have saved 
but little capital ; because it took our whole ability 
to supply ourselves with necessaries and luxuries 
from abroad, which are consumed, leaving not a 
wreck behind. Our effort has been to make the 
two ends of the year meet, and prevent balances 
against us. Have we done this ? The worst is to 
come ; and when our present circumstances speak, 
will show a sad case of debt and thraldom, worse 
than the spendthrift, who, after using up his income 
finds himself in the hands of the Jews and usurers. 
England, after finding that we had not only spent 
our income with her, and anticipated it by one or 
two years, and that we had gotten into such an ex- 



80 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

travagant way as to want more — ten times more, if 
we could get it, met this want up to all the availa- 
ble credit that we had after our means were ex- 
hausted. The evil did not stop there. She agreed 
to take, and required us to transfer, all the stocks 
that were available, and promised some dividend to 
her, including our national, state, corporation, and 
the one thousand banks that we had started. When 
all this was done, and the dividends gone from us 
for ever, as well as the principal, and we still want- 
ed more ! cried aloud for more ! must have more ! 
the plan was then hit on to call up the states, these 
sovereignties that stood behind the crowd, and 
urge them on to useless and empty consumption, 
and get them to borrow millions under the sem- 
blance that they could expend them in developing 
the country. These sovereignties, urged by dema- 
gogues who knew that they would have the hand- 
ling of the money, came forward and put their sign 
manual to loans amounting to two hundred million 
dollars, and issued with much parade bonds and 
stock to that amount, bearing on an average six per 
cent, payable semi-annually, or quarterly even, in 
England, if required. This money reached this 
country principally in the shape of trashy goods, at 
two prices, and such things as we either did not 
need or ought to have made at home, but which we 
consumed and sunk for ever. That two hundred 
million gave us that much more ability to buy and 
consume English goods, which she very well knew, 
and every cent of it returned rapidly to Europe, prin- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 81 

cipally to England, sure enough, after more goods. 
So rapidly did it hurry hack, that it made no im- 
provements in the country in the shape of cities, 
farms, schools, and substantial comforts ; merely half 
dug out some canals and ways for roads, and built 
some board shantees in which to sell liquors and 
English goods to the laborers, who pretended to be 
making great works. 

What are the facts now 1 We wake up to debts 
enough to weigh down our industry for the next 
fifty years. The states owe in their sovereign ca- 
pacity two hundred millions ; half of it not even 
paying interest from sheer inability, ten millions of 
it repudiated, and disgracing in both cases our free 
institutions and nation. Of bank and corporation 
and national stocks, besides, two hundred millions 
held in England, and the individual indebtedness, 
amounting abroad to fifty millions, making in all 
the enormous sum of four hundred and fifty million 
dollars owed abroad, and for what 1 such things as % 
we might and ought to have made at home. Half 
of the works aimed at are not finished ; such as are 
completed subserve Europe perhaps nearly as much 
as ourselves, by letting her into the very bosom of 
our country, to poison and corrupt still more our 
very principle of action. We are now paying to 
England in the shape of interest and dividends not 
less than fifteen million dollars annually, which 
will keep us poor for an age to come. The ex- 
pending, or rather paying for it, is now not even an 
outlay ; fifteen million dollars abroad hurts us 

7 



82 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

worse, prostrates us more, than paying to one an- 
other one hundred millions would; for then the 
money is still in the country, and a part of our cap- 
ital ; in the other case it is gone for ever. 

There is no calculating such differences ; they 
appal when run out into their detail. I would lay it 
down, then, as a plain principle, and a case proved, 
that a nation that supplies itself with articles of ne- 
cessity or even luxury from abroad, will never accu- 
mulate capital or get rich, can only hope to meet 
the balance annually. I will further assert, and 
appeal to experience in support of the fact, that 
they do not meet their balances, but are invariably 
in debt abroad. I will also assert, and prove it, 
too, that all increase of capital, all issue of stocks, 
or loans made by a nation thus circumstanced, is 
death to her ; for all this, too, travels abroad for 
goods. I will finally assert, that these operations 
indefinitely postpone the time when such nation will 
supply itself, and give to it so much discredit and 
such innumerable bad habits and factitious wants, 
that she can scarcely ever be available for practical 
and economical purposes, and stands mortgaged 
and bound for ages to her successful and laughing 
masters and rivals. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 83 



CHAPTER XV. 

HOME MARKET ITS EXTENT. 

Let us estimate the home market, and its extent. 
I would first lay it down as a sort of axiom, or at 
least a very sound principle, that all nations ought 
to make their own supply ; not only of provisions 
but manufactured articles. The home market 
ought to be secured in an absolute and certain way 
to their own citizens. In regard to provisions this 
country has all the time supplied itself. All the 
Indian corn ; all the fruit and horticulture ; and 
fowls, and butter, and other small cultures, such as 
potatoes, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat, wool, are 
not only cultivated for the home market, but all 
consumed by it. Three-fourths of our pork and 
lard ; nine-tenths of our beef; three-fourths of our 
fish ; four-fifths of our flour, say four million bar- 
rels out of five, and four-fifths of our lumber are 
consumed and wanted at home ; not counting in this 
consumption the people who grow and produce these 
things. So of provisions, of fish, of lumber, we make 
all, import none, send abroad a good deal, and have 
therefore the home market complete. We may 
say the same thing of live stock, ships and com- 



84 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

merce, and of the great staples, such as tobacco, 
cotton, hemp, flax, and others ; some of which, after 
supplying the home market, leave most of their 
bulk for export, and are a vast source of wealth to 
the nation. 

It remains to secure the home market for the 
manufactures ; a very important department of in- 
dustry, and one that needs it more as an encour- 
agement than all the others. All people must 
supply the bulk of what they produce as a thing of 
necessity ; for I lay it down as a fixed and certain 
rule, that no people or nation ever did or can buy 
all they consume of manufactured articles. They 
have not the ability to do it ; for their exports, which 
must come from agriculture, or fisheries, or forests. 
or mines, constitute the ability. No nation sells 
enough, therefore, or could sell enough to buy all 
the fabrics she wants, supposing she made none. 
We know what our export or ability is ; we know 
what the ability is of each nation of Europe, and 
can calculate it very easily. It is a curious fact in 
political economy, and makes a very curious prob- 
lem, which should point to and direct politicians 
in all their tariffs. 

By the census and other documents, this nation 
consumes twelve hundred millions of fabrics or man- 
ufactured articles, and imports only sixty millions : 
as custom-house data prove. Our ability to im- 
port is only ninety millions, and forty of that import- 
ation consists of sugar, coffee, tea, wines, and other 
supplies, that hardly rank as manufactures, and are 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 85 

not counted as such in this estimate. The above 
assertion sounds strange, and requires some proofs 
and explanation. That we import but sixty mil- 
lions of fabrics is proved clearly enough; that our 
ability to import and consume is a fact of public 
authority ; that we consume twelve hundred mil- 
lions a year, I will prove by giving a few items, that 
serve as data, in aid of the census, which is never 
very correct in these side estimates. We are now 
eighteen millions of population. Take the first 
great class of supplies, say textures ; counting cot- 
ton, woollen, silk, hemp, flax, and including not only 
clothing, but bedding, curtains, and carpets ; and 
putting the consumption on the average at twenty- 
five dollars a head, it amounts to four hundred and 
forty millions a year — 

$440,000,000 

Hats at $5; shoes and boots at $10 a head, . . 270,000,000 

Saddles, harness, bridles, whips, and thongs, $5, . . 90,000,000 

Cabinet furniture, including household, $10, . . 180,000,000 

Wagons, carts, wheels, carriages, barrows, $10, . 180,000,000 

Tools for mechanics, mill-irons, plantation cutlery, $10, 180,000,000 

Machinery, steam engines, and all relating thereto, $5, 90,000,000 

Iron, nails, castings, stoves, $10, .... 180,000,000 

Crockery, kitchen tools, knives, forks, spoons, &c, $10, 180,000,000 

Books, journals, newspapers, advertisements, $5, . 90,000,000 

Medicines, chemicals, dyestuffs, salts, $10, . . . 180,000,000 

Glass, paper, leather, soap, candles, $10, . . . 180,000,000 

All other things, $5, 90,000,000 

$2320,000,000 

Now suppose the above grand total be somewhat 
overrated, it will certainly leave at least twelve 
hundred millions for our consumption annually. If 



86 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

we had to buy this from abroad, instead of barter- 
ing for it in a manner at home, how would we pay 
for it 1 We know ninety millions at most is our 
ability, and after that is exhausted, we would have 
to go naked or suffer, if we did not make the things 
ourselves. We are so familiar with the daily house- 
hold manufactures going on every where, and the 
daily exchangings based upon them, that they do 
not excite any interest, and we cease to appreciate 
them. They are not the less real and invaluable 
for that reason. England, by the estimate of her 
writers, consumes even more to the head than we 
do ; say, however, that she consumes twelve hun- 
dred million dollars worth annually, where could 
she find the ability to buy all this, since her exports, 
leaving out her manufactures, amount to nothing, 
scarcely worth estimating ? She is a striking ex- 
ample, or an extreme case, and would literally go 
naked and starve, did she not make all at home. 

The above estimates and reasonings show the 
great importance of the home market. We may 
add here, that we are now spinning up near four hun- 
dred thousand bales of cotton, one-fifth of the whole 
production, and the wool of forty million sheep. 
We use up all the skins and hides we strip ; all the 
sugar we make, say one hundred thousand hogs- 
heads weighing one thousand pounds each ; nearly 
three million tons of coal, counting bituminous and 
anthracite; five million bushels of salt; fifty thou- 
sand tons of iron; all these of our own making, 
and then import vast quantities of these things be- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 87 

sides. We sell to other than the producers at home, 
four million barrels of flour, and, as we said, other 
things in proportion. All these goods that we make 
ourselves are not only cheaper, but of a better 
quality than the imported, and better serve the 
population. There is also steadiness in a home 
market, more especially when we have the raw 
material too. It cannot be affected by war, nor 
blockade, nor such like obstructions. Fairness 
takes the place of knavery, confidence of suspicion, 
and the nation feels comfortable, rich, and independ- 
ent. But little money will be wanted to conduct 
such a home interchange. No foreign exchange in 
the money market is necessary in connection with 
it ; no drains upon our banks, because there being 
no pressure, they do not call in or curtail. Every 
moral principle is cherished, and every interest sup- 
ported without violating any faith or contracts, and 
all is mutual and confidential. It is bad enough to 
depend on foreign countries for luxuries, or such 
things as our country cannot produce ; but wo to 
that nation that buys its necessaries abroad ! She 
can be affected in her comforts, and even in her 
very independence, and is virtually tributary. 
Every branch of business is subserved by having 
a home market for our manufactures and raw ma- 
terials, as well as provisions. 

I am told here, that since we come so near sup- 
plying ourselves even in mannfactures, it is hardly 
worth any very special laws about it ; that the 
fifty or sixty millions only out of twelve hundred 



88 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

millions that remain to be supplied, will take care 
of themselves, and in a few years more cover the 
whole ground. I reply, that some of the things re- 
maining unfurnished at home are articles of neces- 
sity, and important to our very independence; such 
as iron, steel, salt, sugar, crockery, and china, and 
the finer cutlery ; for the want of all which we 
might suffer on an emergency, and all of which 
could be made at home. We do not furnish all the 
flannels, blankets, carpeting, and cloths that we 
want. A little protection would bring in silks, 
fine linens, all the fine prints, balzarines, bera- 
ges, merinoes, cashmeres, double mulled muslins, 
and all other things that we now depend on 
foreign countries for. To save sixty million dollars 
a year, which is tantamount to making it, would 
enrich this nation very fast, and leave us a com- 
pletely comfortable people. 

The portion of these things that appertain to 
luxuries, are almost as important to a refined and 
civilized people, in these times of taste and ele- 
gance, as the necessaries. It sets off a people, and 
gratifies them, when they feel that they can pro- 
duce such fancy and splendid things, very much. 
All people must look at home first, (even charity 
begins there,) and stop not short of securing the 
home market in its fullest extent to themselves, 
and stimulating every branch of business up to that 
point. The home market is like an inherited patri- 
mony ; we may claim it as belonging to us, as of 
right ours. What foreign nation is there that has 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 89 

claims on us for this precious boon, the home mar- 
ket *? As well might some rake lay claim to the 
virginity of some dear ward, and expect us to aid 
in the prostitution, as to count on enjoying this in- 
nate and important privilege of supplying our home 
consumption. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED TO A PROTECTING TARIFF. 

Objection 1st — No Revenue. We are asked what 
we will do for a revenue if we make all our sup- 
plies at home? They say there will be no im- 
posts if we import nothing. Our government 
can collect imposts enough from articles that 
can't be made or grown in this country ; say 
on tea, coffee, tropical productions, cocoa, cho- 
colate, preserved fruits, West India staples, and 
such things, for its moderate wants. Its public 
lands would come in aid ; and if all did not do, tax 
on the ad valorem principle, all values, and licen- 
ses. These taxes would be so light as not to op- 
press or affect the country. It would be years too 
before all these supplies were made, and the whole 
ground covered ; and in the mean time the high 
protecting duties would yield revenue enough, with 
the aid of the public lands, and the articles that we 



90 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

could not produce. Again, the increased wealth 
arising from all this saving and producing, which 
would flow in as specie when we fully meet our 
home supply, would well bear taxation, and could 
afford to keep up the revenue of so just and pater- 
nal a government. 

Objection 2d — Have wild or back Lands. We 
are told that we have fertile back lands in abun- 
dance, and our surplus population can occupy 
them, and be comfortable and independent if 
not rich. This is that fixed hog and hominy 
state, or rather the log cabin state, which means, 
raise meat and bread and eat them, and wear 
homespun. In this age of improvement, why stag- 
nate and barbarize the human family, by casting 
them in the woods remote from all comfort and 
civilization 1 Overdone as agriculture is, they could 
not hope to make any money or any thing to sell, 
I have known new settlements, remote from all na- 
vigation and the interchanges of commerce, to re- 
main stationary for twenty years in this log cabin 
state. No change during all that time except some 
dirt, smoke, and dilapidation gathering around the 
cabin. The individual begins by building a cabin 
worth ten dollars, clears a few acres of land, has a 
sow and pigs, a cow and calf, and a horse, and one 
or at most two beds on ash stands. He has some 
corn and pork, and hunts a little. His wife spins, 
and by hand makes some linsey or cotton goods of 
the coarsest sort, with which to clothe all includ- 
ing herself. They are able to buy nothing out of 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 91 

the farm but a little salt and iron. No education 
for the children, or books, newspapers, society, or 
churches, for themselves. All is rough, selfish, and 
barbarous ; and the head of the cabin, nothing but 
a corn-growing Indian. All advance in taste, lux- 
ury, and information, is precluded. Is this a desi- 
rable state in this age of light and improvement? 
Does it contribute any thing to the credit, prosper- 
ity, or resources of the nation 3 This is agricul- 
ture on new lands, in the back woods ; we want no 
more of it, we have had a surfeit. The human 
mind must advance in this age ; it can't even be 
stagnant without going backwards relatively. In 
this young country, where a thousand things can 
be done if the government be true to its own inter- 
ests, and give the proper inducement, all ought 
to be put in train to advance, and be so placed as 
to obey the impulses of gain and independence. 
When we see a young people thrown out of profit- 
able employment, we may take it for granted that 
something is wrong, that the governors of the 
country do not promote its interests, and insure its 
prosperity and developement. The body of the 
people seem to understand the rough and unpropi- 
tious state of a back- woods settlement, and will al- 
most suffer rather than encounter it. They are 
willing to go to any sort of manufacturing or com- 
mercial pursuits, rather than into the woods. The 
backs lands are a resource to the country, and will 
do in the last resort, but then only. 

Objection 3d. We are told that commerce 



92 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

will suffer and stagnate if we make all of our own 
supplies, that there will be nothing for it to occupy 
itself with. The answer to this is very simple. 
Commerce, as far as relates to buying and selling 
on the wholesale or retail principle, will be as well 
or better occupied, and taken up with domestic 
commerce, and interchanges, than with foreign. 
They are more bulky, and safer, and the whole 
operation more steady. No wars to jeopardize, or 
blockades to obstruct, or ups and downs of curren- 
cy from overtrading and reaction. All moves 
steadily and safely and profitably on to support 
and respectability, if not wealth. A merchant 
at home has confidence in his own business ; he 
sees in it a certainty of support ; and his mind 
is not harassed all the time with anxiety for the 
future fate of his capital and his family. Hence 
he is not on the everlasting stretch to make a large 
fortune soon, or to prevent the loss of one, and is 
therefore a better citizen, and safer subject. As 
to foreign commerce, what will be left of it, will be 
pretty much as it now is. Tonnage will be taken up 
in carrying our bulky raw materials and provisions 
abroad, and bringing back such things as we do 
not raise or make. I see nothing to affect com- 
merce unfavorably in the case, but some things, 
and much to stand it on a better and safer footing, 
and render it a more steady and regular occupation. 
In my chapter on commerce, I will show that our 
tonnage duties as to foreign intercourse want regu- 
lating, and to be put on a more just footing for our 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 93 

interests. I shall defer my ideas on commerce as 
a national policy, until I shall have finished my 
remarks on manufactures. 

Objection kth. Another objection to this course 
is, they say, " that if we import no manufactured 
goods, the balance of trade will be too much and 
too continually in our favor, and Europe will have 
to send specie to meet this balance." "That too 
much specie w 7 ill flow 7 here, enough to impair the 
quantity in Europe, producing spasms there, in the 
banks of England and France particularly, and 
deranging all their values, exchanges, and curren- 
cy." "The consequence will be positive laws 
prohibitory of the exportation of specie, and very 
probably a revolution in England." " That the 
prices and values of things will be greatly affected 
there ; so much that a little money will buy a great 
deal, and those nations be unable to take our raw 
materials at all." It is further said, " that the abun- 
dance of money here will lead to extravagance and 
idleness, and make every thing worth so much 
money, produce as well as manufactures, that 
there will be no standard between us and Europe, 
by which to regulate values." They say too that 
" the price of our surplus raw materials will be so 
low, that those great staple districts will suffer 
much relative loss." Finally, " they predict so 
general and wide-spread derangement of business 
and values, that the whole world will be put out 
of her ordinary routine of business, and have to 
seek new connections." All this is too vivid a pic- 



94 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

ture, and one that will not be realized to the extent 
of much mischief and derangement. Values will 
be somewhat affected, but not so much as to pro- 
duce spasm. All our difficulties here will be com- 
pensated by the great abundance of money, which 
we can use in the arts and in plate. And all the 
difficulties in Europe yield to the fact, that less 
money will buy all they want, and serve them 
just as well as more did. Some new channel, some 
new device, or new productions and barters, will 
come in aid of such a state of things, and restore 
the balance. The growers of the raw materials in 
our country will be mainly supported by our own 
demand, which, under a proper protection, will be- 
come the absorbing one, and govern the market. 
Should we get under way, aided by a protecting 
tariff, we will not stop short of supplying the whole 
world, and taking, with our advantages, all the 
markets under our control and management. 

Objection 5th. We are told "that if a tariff be 
laid strong enough to protect and encourage the 
making of the whole supply, that smuggling will 
spring up and impair or defeat the whole object 
aimed at." This has been the standing cry of all 
the anti-tariff party from time immemorial, but 
their prophecies have not been fulfilled to much ex- 
tent. The hazards of smuggling amount to a 
pretty large protection, and by the time they are 
paid, and something for the wear and tear of char- 
acter and conscience allowed for, there will not be 
much smuggling. Our own competition, too, springs 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 95 

up so rapidly, that prices are soon so nearly bal- 
anced here and in England that there is no mar- 
gin left for smuggling. This bugbear, clothed in 
immorality, and without any patriotic feeling about 
it, ought not to deter the real friends of their coun- 
try from doing their duty. As well might a na- 
tional legislature refuse to pass a law against any 
crime, because some member alleged that some 
rascals would escape the penalty of the law. The 
Atlantic ocean is so wide, and our revenue police 
and cutters so active, that but few will attempt it. 
Objection 6th. Another objection to manufac- 
turing very extensively is, " that it confines the 
operatives and their families so much that they be- 
come immoral, unhealthy, and the race degener- 
ates." There are such scenes in England, where 
wages are small and cut down to minimum rates, 
or bare subsistence. In this country, as far as we 
have yet gone, comfort, health, decency, and edu- 
cation accompany that class ; and they are as in- 
telligent, healthy, and moral, as any portion of our 
population that has to labor. The manufacturing 
operations can be carried on consistently with all 
that is due to a useful population. All the pride 
of patriotism, decency of person, neatness of dress, 
purity of manners and language, comport with that 
state in this country. A population thus concen- 
trated ; and decent and orderly, can be made very 
scientific by night lectures, and libraries. The 
Lancastrian monitorial system of education can be 
applied to the rising generation, and night lectures 



96 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and experiments take up the adults. In New Eng- 
land an esprit de corps for decency, morality, religion, 
and character, runs with the operatives, that has 
done wonders, and preserved sobriety, temperance, 
and self-respect, as well as morality, virtue and in- 
dustry. In New England, a great deal of money is 
not only made, but saved, and invested in savings 
banks for future use. 

Where thousands of young women are collect- 
ed about the factories of Lowell, Nashua, Great 
Falls, Pawtucket, Patterson, and other places, there 
is scarcely an instance of bastardy ; not so many 
they say, who know, as among the same amount 
of farmers, or agriculturists. Ideas become prop- 
erty in common among them. The health of the 
manufacturers of New England is not worse, nor 
even as delicate as the people in cities, particularly 
in those parts of cities where the poor live, gen- 
erally in confined and dirty lanes. Nothing need 
be jeopardized, then, on the score of health or 
morals, in the case of the operatives in the manu- 
facturing districts of this country, taking the facts 
named above as data and the basis of all new es- 
tablishments ; and much may be gained in comfort, 
taste, and education, over agriculturists, from this 
favorable situation. 

Objection 1th. It is contended and used as an 
objection to the protecting tariff, " that if we make 
our own supplies up to the full, Europe, and Eng- 
land in particular, would not take our raw materi- 
als." They pretend that she does that on the prin- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 97 

siples of reciprocal trade, and takes our raw things, 
as far as we take her goods. This is not true ; for 
they take no more of our things, at any rate, than 
they want, and must have. The idea of mutual 
interest never entered into their calculations. They 
shut their ports against our provisions and corn, 
and against all of our manufactures, by such high 
duties, that none scarcely go in, and yet clamor if 
we attempt to supply our own wants. This is 
reciprocity with a vengeance. History could not 
furnish an instance of more selfishness than Eng- 
land manifests, or more arrogating injustice. We 
have the meanness too of not only not countervail- 
ing it, but actually contributing to keep up that 
one-sided state of trade. Our anti-tariff politicians, 
are as much playing into the hands of the English, 
in all their measures, as if the words were put into 
their mouths by England, and our laws penned by 
her too. It is strangely inconsistent that a party 
should exist in this free country, in one breath 
abusing England with fixed hatred, and in the next 
moment contributing to all her injustice, and even 
preferring her interests to New England, as to man- 
ufactures. I have witnessed cases where English 
goods of a worse quality, and dearer, were prefer- 
red to better goods from New England. England 
goes on the principle of buying nothing but raw 
materials, or such tropical or southern luxuries as 
she can't produce, and buys them invariably where 
she can the cheapest. 

No nation has acted more impolitically, with 
8 



98 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

all hei* shrewdness and selfishness, than England. 
She has, by her injustice, and grasping arrogance 
and war, forced the United States into manufac- 
turing, pretty well up to their own consumption. 
Nothing of the sort was aimed at before England 
began her oppressions. Had England had fore- 
sight enough to have made with us reciprocal 
treaties, based on mutual interests and on our respec- 
tive productions, both nations would have found 
their interest in it. Had England, for instance, let 
our corn and pork in at a low, or no duty, and our 
raw materials too, we would have leaned on agri- 
culture with a view of supplying her, and never 
have gone into manufactures, except in the family 
way. On the lowest estimate, if England had 
taken our corn, and provisions generally, since the 
year 1790, it would have counted us by this time 
one thousand million of dollars, at the least, and 
have enriched us. She too, would have secured in 
us an everlasting customer, that would of course 
have enriched her in a still more signal way ; for 
manufacturers in interchanges always, from the 
nature of the productious, have advantages over 
agriculturists. Nothing but her aristocracy and 
a short-sighted policy, has held her to the restric- 
tive system in regard to us and our provisions. 
Her loss is irreparable, for she has lost her best 
customer for ever, and built up for herself a rival in 
all the markets of the world besides. No two na- 
tions ever existed, that could have played into each 
other's hands so completely, as this country and 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 99 

England ; from the diversified character of their 
productions, and capacities to furnish such things 
as each wanted. This was seemingly aided too by 
the same language and habits, free institutions, and 
enterprise in their people. 

Let us now go back to the first idea, " that Eng- 
land will not take our raw materials unless we take 
her manufactures ;" analyze it a little closer, and 
look at it in its true bearings. Is it not surprising, 
and past all belief, that our greatest men from the 
south, and many of the leaders of party, should 
have risked their reputation for thought, and char- 
acter, and consistency, so far as to have asserted, 
on the floor of Congress, " that unless we take our 
supplies of goods from England, she will not take 
our raw cotton 1" And further, " That because 
the export of cotton gives us most of our export 
value, it must pay and does pay one-half of all the 
imposts V " That the growers of it do to that ex- 
tent," they say, " pay the taxes of this government." 
This last idea is too absurd for serious discussion, 
and can't hope to disturb the self-evident fact, that 
it is the consumer, the world over, that pays the 
tax. We leave that to its own absurdity, and in- 
quire into the other idea, " that England will not 
take our raw material, of cotton particularly, un- 
less we take our supply of goods from her." Eng- 
land has been true all the time to her maxim of 
buying what raw materials she wants, wherever she 
can buy the cheapest, and in no instance does she 
depart from it. I will lay it down as a fact, tha 



100 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

all our cotton, as well as what is made every where 
else, is wanted and actually consumed. The stock 
even now in England, although comparatively 
large, is fading away so fast as to almost create an 
alarm. We will illustrate this subject now, by a 
fact that will perhaps produce some surprise. We 
send to Europe about 1,700,000 bales of cotton 
now, and take back in the shape of cotton goods 
of all sorts, from every nation, only 60,000 bales 
in all. I prove this in this way : our custom-house 
furnishes the data that we are now importing 
but 8,000,000 dollars worth of cotton goods from 
the whole world. Now by casting our data upon 
the difference of the raw and wrought value of 
cotton, we can come at the fact. The wrought 
value of such fine goods as we take from Europe, 
is six times the raw. Now if 8,000,000 dollars buy 
the wrought, by the inverse rule of three what must 
the raw, entering in it as one to five, cost? The 
answer is about 60,000 bales. This fact would 
have astonished those great politicians referred to, 
if they had ever extended their minds so far, or if 
their prejudices would have suffered it. Were our 
custom, therefore, withdrawn from England, it 
would not be felt much. This fact bears directly 
on the idea, that England will not take our cotton 
unless we take her goods, and shows its emptiness. 
England wants our raw cotton for her other cus- 
tomers and her own consumption, and must have 
it. She is now consuming thirty thousand bales a 
week, and must have all of 1,500,000 bales to 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 101 

make up her quota and prevent her spindles stop- 
ping, which would be spasms and death to her in 
these times of general thrift. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

OUR CAPACITY TO GROW COTTON CHEAPER THAN ANY 
COUNTRY. 

Another question arises in connection with the 
above, as to the capacity to grow cotton in the 
United States, compared with other nations, and 
whether the market can be supplied and overdone, 
or not? The capacity in the United States to grow 
cotton, hardly knows any limits. I will assert here 
that we can grow it cheaper than other nations, up 
to any demand for it. and will take the markets of 
the world for that article, particularly on this side 
of the Cape of Good Hope. Slavery is fixed 
enough in the United States, to count certainly on 
its productions for the next fifty years at least, and 
will take hold of the staple of cotton, stronger and 
stronger every year. The average crop in this 
country now, is two million bales ; of this we spin 
four hundred thousand. England wants at least, 
one million bales of our cotton, and the balance of 
Europe, not less than six hundred thousand. We 
see that our crop is now fully up to the consump- 
tion of the whole market, and will increase faster 



102 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

than that consumption. It is calculated that with 
Texas our annual increase of production will be 
not less than two hundred thousand bales, whilst 
the increased consumption will not be much more 
than half of that amount. We can grow cotton 
cheaper than any other people, and of a better 
quality. As our agriculture is so much overdone in 
other productions, and as so many slaves are nearly 
idle north of the cotton district, and no limit to the 
fertile, cheap land, and a suitable climate for cot- 
ton, the tendency is that way, and continual and 
great increase may be looked for in its growth. 
Nothing is looked to by these slaveholders but 
annual surplus, I mean the balance that is in hand 
at the end of the year, over and above the outlay 
and expenses for that year. They own the slaves, 
and never count them as capital or calculate any 
interest on their cost unless a new plantation is be- 
ing made as an investment by some capitalist ; 
where the land and slaves have all to be bought, 
then the annual profit is calculated. There are 
few new investments in that way; all the increase 
of crop is from an increase of slaves, partly in a 
natural way, and partly by their owners bringing 
them from the north, where they were unproduc- 
tive. 

Let us now calculate what cotton can be grown 
for, when prices get down to a mere support for 
master and slave. With the proper economy, by 
the owner living on his place, deriving his house- 
hold and table expenses from it, and clothing and 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 103 

feeding his own slaves, his annual expenses, count- 
ing salt, iron, medicines, taxes, wrapping for his 
cotton, and overseer's wages, do not exceed two 
cents a pound on the product or crop ; all over that 
is profit in their sense, that is, over and above an- 
nual expenses. I will give the detail to make this 
clear. A plantation of fifty hands, makes the 
average of seven bales to the hand, weighing four 
hundred and fifty pounds; this is three hundred 
and fifty bales. Suppose two cents for expenses, 
this amounts to $3150 on the crop. This crop, say, 
sells for four cents a pound neat, and, clear of 
charges for transportation, insurance, and commis- 
sions for selling, leaves $3150 profit for the luxu- 
ries of the owner, who gets his necessaries out of 
the plantation by living on it. This is a very 
pretty sum ; and half of it would be ample for him, 
which would reduce cotton to three cents. As to 
insurance, unfortunately the slaves not only insure 
themselves, but give a large increase, which grows 
up with the owner's children, and furnishes them 
with outfits by the time they need them. Now I 
will go into a calculation to show that two cents a 
pound cover the annual expense. Here follow the 
items, taking a plantation of fifty hands as a basis. 
— For overseer, $500; for salt, $20; iron, $30; 
medicines, $20; doctor's bill, $100, for you can 
contract by the year, and it is often done at two 
dollars a head ; bagging and rope to wrap it, at 
twelve and a half cents for the one, and five cents 
for the other, amount to $300 ; taxes, $100 ; sun- 



104 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

dry small things, $100, all told. (The writer speaks 
from experience, for he is a planter of cotton and 
owns slaves.) All this amounts to $1070, much 
below the allowance of two cents a pound, amount- 
ing, as we have seen, to $3150. I only wish to 
show that we can grow cotton at three cents a 
pound, and have a living profit. This will carry 
on the culture unabated, and increase the popula- 
tion from the sources named. It is one of those 
accumulated tides that rolls itself on ; or one 
of those sweeping tornadoes that carries on its 
might by some inherent elasticity. We can grow 
it cheaper than all other people for the above rea- 
sons, and take the whole supply of the world, at 
least our world, this side of the Cape of Good 
Hope. Besides the calculations of cost gone into 
above, we know the fact, that as long as there is 
any surplus or result annually above expense, the 
slaves engaged in it will go on, and with increased 
energy and skill, just in proportion to the lowness 
of price. This habit the slave-owner has of not 
counting his slaves as capital at all, or sinking them 
to nothing in the estimate, as far as investments 
are concerned, is hard to meet, and still harder to 
beat. Were there any other cultures that promised 
the certainty of a better and permanent profit to 
slaveholders, there would be some danger of hav- 
ing this staple affected. It however is as profitable 
as any ; less overdone, and more permanent in its 
character and market. This, in connection with 
the fact that they are in possession of costly ma- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 105 

chinery fixed in this culture, will keep all the slaves 
and their increase at it all the time. There is an 
energy and skill in the masters of this country that 
not only organizes slavery in a safe way, but stim- 
ulates it, and makes it almost twice as productive 
as it ever was in the West Indies, or South America. 
This is more manifest in the cotton culture than 
others, and powerfully affects its volume and profits. 
This habit of looking to annual results or surplus 
only, will insure the continuance of this culture, 
even in the poorer lands, where, although the pro- 
fits are less, they show some result ; and being 
on account of the poverty of the soil the more 
healthy, the owners all live on their property and 
need less income. The cotton culture then is sure 
to go on in this country, at any price, from three 
cents up, that the market warrants, and with in- 
creased energies. These facts warrant us in assert- 
ing, which we do broadly and unqualifiedly, that we 
can grow cotton cheaper than any other people on 
earth, not even excepting the Hindoos. The con- 
sequence of this will be that we will take the 
market of the whole world, and keep it supplied 
with cotton. 

Let us now institute some comparison between 
the United States and other countries, in reference 
to this culture. The other country that we dread- 
ed most as a rival is Brazil. Here I will make one 
general remark, that applies emphatically to Amer- 
ica and the West Indies, that is, that no free men 
ever have or will, at minimum prices, cultivate cot- 



106 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

ton at all. The only cotton then sent out of this 
continent, will be grown by slaves. Brazil is 
a slave country, and a fertile one. The cotton 
crops have been for many years without much in- 
crease, running about two hundred thousand bales 
of the weight of ours. As cotton falls in its price, 
does she quit its culture, and go to others. She has 
the sugar, coffee, cocoa, dyestuffs, diamonds, gold, 
and all the tropical productions to back upon, when 
cotton does not promise a profit. Sugar and coffee 
there are increasing because slavery in Hayti, the 
British Islands and Caraccas, has been discharged, 
and sugar and coffee affected to that extent ; for as 
sure as the sun rises, all heavy staples will cease 
with slavery ere long. Hayti once flooded Europe 
with her sugar ; now she does not produce enough 
for her own use. Brazil, therefore, whilst her slave- 
ry lasts, will not cultivate cotton at low prices, but 
lean on her other staples ; at the least she will not 
increase her cotton culture ; and the next revolution 
there will most probably put an end to slavery, 
and mix it in with the population, that is pretty 
well tainted with the blood, and prepared for such 
an event. Brazil need not then be feared as a cot- 
ton-growing rival. Next comes the West Indies, 
including Berbice, Demarara, and Surinam. In the 
West Indies, the cheniel, storms, and better staples 
have banished cotton long since ; and it is no longer 
among their staples. Berbice and Demarara are 
rather exceptions. The facts, however, there, do 
not favor any increased culture. In the English 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 107 

part, slavery is discharged, and soon will be in the 
other parts of that region. France, Holland, Swe- 
den, and Denmark, will soon discharge slavery in 
their islands and on the main, and some of the re- 
volutions ere long reach the Spanish islands. 
We now come to Egypt and the Levant. In the 
latter region it amounts to nothing ; and in Egypt 
is a forced culture on the principle of slavery, and 
will end with the Pasha's life in a few years. The 
change, and most probably the distraction attend- 
ant on the Pasha's death, will put an end to this 
organization. It never exceeded two hundred 
thousand of our bales, and will be less before it is 
more. The Pasha says, moreover, that he will not 
grow it at the present low prices ; as he has his 
corn, and sugar crops, and even rice, that will be 
more profitable. 

We will now go to the East Indies, Bombay, 
and other parts of the British possessions in Hin- 
dostan. Much has been said as to the capacity and 
cheapness of this country, in reference to the cot- 
ton product, and many threats thrown out both by 
the English, and our own politicians, as to what 
this great country can or would do. This has led 
to much inquiry, and I have convinced myself that 
we can beat even the East Indies in this culture ; 
and will beat them out of all the markets of Eu- 
rope and, I believe, China. They have never rais- 
ed it under four cents as a staple ; and will not, 
because they are an indolent people ; have no wants, 
and cannot be stimulated without great rewards or 



108 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

inducements. Labor is cheap there, but very ineffi- 
cient ; one American slave is made to do as much as 
five of those laborers, at the safest estimate. They 
have no contrivance, or spirit, or ingenuity. Their 
cotton is of a very low and bad quality, and, from 
experiments lately made, cannot be improved. The 
reason is, it rattoons or becomes a tree, and the cot- 
ton borne on these trees is short, harsh, small in 
quantity, and very difficult to gather. All rattoon 
cotton, even in the West Indies, or South America, 
is of a worthless and very inferior quality. Amer- 
icans and good machinery were taken out to Bom- 
bay to improve the quality of their cotton. These 
men were neighbors of mine, and since their return, 
I have seen and talked with them in detail. They 
are practical men, and do not hesitate to say that 
the culture there, on the American annual planting 
system, is a total failure, and from the nature of the 
climate must be so. The climate is too dry ; needs 
irrigation, which alone insures a failure. When 
the market is excited enough for orders to go from 
Europe to Bombay for cotton, the factors pass the 
word, and the Gentoos go to work and collect it 
from the trees growing around their huts, or around 
waste places, until the quantity wanted is made up. 
Then it all ceases until the market authorizes ano- 
ther picking. This accounts for the ups and downs 
of the cotton market in Europe, for the last fifty 
years. As soon as the stock diminished enough in 
Liverpool to create any alarm or anxiety about the 
supply, up went the price, sometimes to thirty cents, 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 109 

Then heavy orders went to the East Indies, and the 
high price stimulated the Gentoos to strip every 
tree in the whole land to fill these orders, and a 
large quantity of cotton arrived in Europe, enough 
to swell the stock and dash the price down to less 
than half what it was. The same thing was re- 
peated as fast as they worked the stock down ; 
hence the vibrations that we have witnessed in the 
cotton market ; some of them of magnitude enough 
to disturb all the interests in Europe and America, 
and produce convulsions in the money market, by 
deeply affecting all values. Fortunately for the 
country, and particularly for Europe, these vibra- 
tions must now cease ; because our crops hereafter, 
and even now, do meet all the wants of Europe, and 
furnish a better quality of cotton to the manufactu- 
rers. Our crop will never again, as we have shown 
above, drop below the consumption ; on the con- 
trary, will keep ahead of it enough to let down the 
price to the minimum. Then, as said before, we 
will have the whole market, and even the Surats 
no longer travel around the Cape of Good Hope. 
The markets then of every thing will be more 
steady, for cotton seems to be the master spirit that 
disturbs all, and deranges all. The American mas- 
ter will lean upon his low, but certain income ; raise 
all his supplies, and make a thousand improvements 
that will redound to the comfort of the slaves, and 
the pride and elegance of the owner. In the cot- 
ton culture there is time to do much in the way of 
improvements. The slaves are many of them car- 



110 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

penters, masons, smiths, brick-makers, and garden- 
ers, and can do all these things between the coming 
in of a new crop, and the going out of the last. A 
planter, too, can and does raise all his food, both 
meat and bread, and a comfortable supply of vegeta- 
bles, and a dairy ; and does all this without taking 
any time from the cotton, for these things are 
either incidental cultures, or come in before or after 
cotton, so as not at all to interfere with it. I am 
not speaking hypothetically, when I say the United 
States can grow all the cotton wanted ; have slaves 
and land enough to do it, and even overdo it. This 
country can raise three million bales, just as easily 
as she now does two millions, when that much is 
wanted, and then keep ahead of the consumption 
far enough to prevent any advance in the price. 
This culture embraces such an extent of country, 
from the Roanoke to the Rio Grande on the sea- 
coast, turning some very prominent capes, and from 
the Cumberland river to the Gulf of Mexico, that 
it cannot fail extensively from any one cause. The 
worms prevail in one district, and twenty others 
have none. A drought never affects more than 
one-fifth or one-sixth at a time, nor too much wet 
either. A tornado is always very limited ; and an 
extensive gale never reaches the Atlantic and Gulf 
both in its sweepings. Nothing can therefore pros- 
trate one-fourth of a crop, or even one-fifth of it at 
once. The production is sure to be adequate, and 
keep ahead of all wants. 

This is a fact upon which, both in England and 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. Ill 

in this country, much might be built as regards the 
great interests of the money operations, manufac- 
tures, and commerce. Some of the best and most 
important principles in political economy might 
derive aid and illustration from it, and many great 
movements be governed by it. It behooves all po- 
litical economists, all financiers, all statesmen, all 
manufacturers, and merchants, to examine the facts 
closely before they make any changes in their bu- 
siness. If we keep cotton down, not to its minimum 
price, but to five or six cents, it will cease to come 
around the Cape of Good Hope, and the United 
States have the market of the world just as cer- 
tainly as at three cents. The Surats are the last 
rivals that are to be vanquished by the superior 
energy, ability, and organization of this country, 
and forced to quit the field that legitimately be- 
longs to us. England and Europe owe us thou- 
sands of millions of money for cotton crops yet 
unborn, but which time will mature, and enable 
us to close this great mortgage that nature and art 
have given to us upon the industry of the world. 
The carding of cotton and wool together will carry 
the use of cotton into the winters of every country, 
and increase its consumption one fourth at least, 
A sort of goods are thus made that fit all warm 
or temperate latitudes, and the two seasons of the 
year, fall, and spring, that are too warm for wool- 
len, and too cold for cotton. There is a suppleness 
in these goods that fits them admirably for ladies' 
clothing and children's, where the form and action 



112 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

will not be encumbered. Substitution of cotton 
for many things will take place when the value is 
let down to a low price, and give greater extent to 
its use. Three million bales at four cents a pound, 
is eighteen dollars a bale, and will amount to the 
enormous sum, even at that minimum price, of 
fifty-four million dollars, which will be realized by 
one fifth part of the population of the United States, 
counting slaves and children, and leaving out the 
slaves, by one-tenth part of this nation. This is 
fully one half of the revenue of the country arising 
from exports. This shows what a margin the cot- 
ton interest has yet for profit, and how truly, as we 
have said, it can descend much lower in the scale 
of compensation to its producers, and enable them 
to live comfortably, and carry it on to the same and 
greater extent. The whole body of slaves will, 
like the northern Goths and Vandals, move south- 
wardly in abody, or enough of them to put the profits 
of the cotton culture as low as grain and tobacco 
have become, and equalize labor of that descrip- 
tion in the United States. 

The above showing and reasoning does away 
the idea with which our own and English politi- 
cians threaten us, " that England would not take 
our raw cotton if we refused to take her goods ; 
would draw her supply from other quarters, and 
stimulate her own East Indies to produce enough 
to meet her demand." She dare not decline taking 
our cotton, for it is cheapest, and because she has 
built up her manufactories on the minimum price 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 113 

of the raw material, and buys it wherever cheap- 
est, and have conformed all prices of labor and 
goods to that principle. England has in France 
and Germany, as well as in us, rivals to her cotton 
manufactures, and such skilful rivals, too, that she 
dare not pay more for the raw material than they 
do. If she were to pay two cents a pound more for 
cotton than we do, or than the Continent of Europe 
does, she would lose her hold on the cotton manu- 
facture, and her opponents would take her mar- 
kets. The half penny a pound duty now levied 
in England, will have to give way to insure her 
success. There is no danger then of England ever 
paying more for raw materials, by the operation of 
a law of her own passing, than the rest of the cot- 
ton world. For the same reason she cannot afford 
to give a bounty to the East or West for raw 
cotton ; it would throw her behind, and prostrate 
her. We have seen that the Surats cannot be 
grown and brought around the Cape, where double 
freights exist, as cheap as we can furnish a better 
article. England will continue, in the nature of 
things, and from the very necessity of the case, to 
take our cottons as far as she wants them, and pay 
for them in specie, even if we should not want her 
manufactures. Another branch of the argument 
is, that if we want nothing from England, our crop 
will not be wanted. We have made this all clear 
in the previous paragraphs. We will merely add 
here, that between us and England it is a plus and 
minus state, as to the consumption of cotton. What 

9 



114 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

we spin more, England spins less, and vice versa, 
which would leave the great principle of demand 
and supply exactly on the same ground as it was 
on before. There would be this difference, how- 
ever, that we spinning one- third or one-half of the 
crop would create two markets for our cotton, two 
sets of bidders, and a competition that is always 
worth something to a market. We would profit 
by this, and have already profited by it : according 
to the opinions of our most deserving and most 
skilful commission merchants and factors, our own 
spinners are now worth fully two cents a pound to 
the cotton market each and every year, by the 
competition they create with the Europeans. Let 
this competition go further, until all monopolies 
cease in that great field of demand and supply, and 
an honest bidding between the consumers goes on 
regularly. This would be another means of steady- 
ing the market, and placing every thing in relation 
to this great interest on a calm and certain footing. 
In England the cotton has become the great and 
absorbing interest of the nation. When any thing 
happens to this vital principle with her, all be- 
comes paralyzed, and her very constitution seems 
to give way. All her members sympathize with 
the spasms which this interruption of the circula- 
tion of her very heart's blood produces. In the use 
of cotton she is like the sot, who, steeped in liquor 
tries to live without its stimulus and sinks in the 
attempt ; she must have it, and must spin it, and 
must sell it, and must live upon it. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 115 

Fears have been expressed, that " should we 
get under way by the stimulus of a protecting ta- 
riff, we would not only pass the dead point, but go 
ahead beyond our own consumption, so as to aim 
at supplying the whole world with manufactures." 
" That large towns would spring up and exhibit 
the scenes of distress that Manchester, Birming- 
ham, Sheffield, and other places in England do, and 
create a miserable population," which, put upon 
minimum wages, could save nothing, and be subject, 
on every reverse of business, to all possible misery. 
This might be prevented, if taken in time, by laying 
an export duty on all manufactures leaving this 
country. Such arguments cut like two-edged 
swords, and show how much might be done under 
a protection. A cheap clothing would add very 
much to the comfort and decency of the world, 
and stand all in an array of becoming respecta- 
bility, as to appearance, that would inspire in them 
self-esteem and a consciousness of something capa- 
ble of taking care of themselves. In the savage 
state, and before cotton wrapped mankind, they 
suffered for clothing, and rags indicated poverty. 
Now all may be clothed that choose to work one 
day in the week, and abstain another day from 
drink and tobacco. What effect is all this facility 
destined to have on man? It will teach him never 
to despond and sink under his circumstances, no 
matter how narrow and restricted they may be. 



116 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY, 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

MANUFACTURES WILL HAVE A GOOD EFFECT ON OUR 
GENERAL PROSPERITY, AND EACH BRANCH OF BUSINESS. 

General Prosperity. Let us now look a little 
closer into the effect, that the encouragement of 
manufactures would have upon the general pros- 
perity of this country, and upon each branch of 
business and separate interest in particular. I 
have clearly shown above that we are ripe for 
them, and that drawing or diverting labor from 
overwrought agriculture, commerce, and our cities, 
would do much good, and relieve those cases from 
great depression. All occupations or branches of 
business would exert more elasticity, and be the 
more vigorous and healthy for it. Five hundred 
thousand laborers put to work, with all the aids of 
machinery, could, according to estimates well esta- 
blished from facts in England, produce two hun- 
dred million dollars worth of goods : if we went 
up to the consumption of the country only, less 
than one half of this sum would produce much 
wealth and prosperity, and work wonders upon 
this nation. If we went beyond the home supply, 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 117 

the overplus would be the means of a vast barter or 
trade with South America, the West Indies, the 
Levant, and China. We would use the foreign 
market then as England now does, that is, to vent 
surplus manufactures upon. Our home market 
would increase much and rapidly from the increased 
ability all this would give, and the thousand 
springs of industry that would be touched by the 
operation, including its transportations, storages, 
commissions, agencies, and all concerned in such 
extended transactions. In a country of such 
varied interests and articles of both art and agri- 
culture, if things did become overdone, an exten- 
sive barter system would take the grand rounds, 
until a man's labor might be turned into all the 
comforts and elegancies of life, and through such 
interchanges present a state without a further 
want. How different this from the log-cabin state 
we described above ! Our market and prices then 
would become steady, and to be calculated in 
reference to any interest. No vibrations, occa- 
sioned by wars, short or abundant crops, and 
speculating rage, that, having their bases in Eu- 
rope, in overtradings, and wild calculations, pros- 
trate our merchants, drain our specie, destroy 
credit, and suspend our banks. This state of 
things tends to drive the fair and regular trader 
from his business, and leaves the field to the un- 
principled and desperate adventurer. If war 
now assails us, or rages even in Europe, we be- 
come involved. Our scattered and floating capital, 



118 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

at the mercy of tyrants and revolutions, may be 
seized or compromited, as we have more than 
once seen it, and, what is worse now, we have no 
home market to back upon. We have seen this 
fair country suffering for the want of the common- 
est articles of necessity in a war, and forced to get 
them from the very enemy we were fighting, by 
illegal licenses. In the last war with England, we 
had not iron, salt, blankets, flannels, and woollen 
goods enough for necessity, much less comfort. A 
nation becomes independent in making or pro- 
ducing such things. We hesitate now to fight or 
go to war for our most sacred rights, lest we suffer 
privations and discomfit. In place of all these 
effects and privations, we would have a prosperity 
that would in its tide embrace all interests by en- 
couraging and protecting manufactures. An un- 
steady market and an uncertain state of things are 
very demoralizing to all nations. In a single season 
a people often lose half their capital, particularly 
the mercantile and trading portion thereof. Losses 
of this kind run in a sad train. Overtrading at 
home leaves debts abroad unpaid and credit ruin- 
ed, exchanges against us, specie leaving the vaults 
of our banks, and they, to sustain themselves, have 
to curtail, and the whole mass of the people be- 
come then affected. The commerce of the coun- 
try becomes crimped down to nothing, prices of 
produce and all values nominal, merchants grow 
desperate, conceal, lie, swindle, first their creditors, 
then the government. These things work on, un» 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 119 

til the whole trade, commerce, and capital of the 
country is swept off, and all get into the hands of 
foreigners, who have no interest to restore things. 
This overtrading, which is generally the root of 
this evil, would not exist if we were making our 
supplies, instead of reaching out in this way after 
them, and involving all in speculation and uncer- 
tainty. Instead of all this confusion, immorality, 
and loss, give me the home market and a manufac- 
turing interest to supply it, and let me enjoy all the 
prosperity appertaining to it. This would be a 
general prosperity and thrift, the accumulation of 
wealth and capital, the increase of comforts and 
elegancies, and even luxuries, and the reality as 
well as the feeling of independence. 

Agriculture. Let us now show the bearing and 
influence a tariff would have on all the productions, 
all the staples, all the occupations, the interests, the 
capital, and character of the country and its citizens. 
I will consider, first, the effect of a protecting tariff 
on our agriculture, the very foundation of our sub- 
sistence and wealth. When the agriculturists and 
manufacturers, the producers and consumers are 
brought together, it is better ; much time is then 
saved in serving them, and much capital in trans- 
portations. Many -of the small cultures that make 
a show on the stalls of a market, and contribute 
much to comfort and support, will not bear to be 
carried or transported far. They must be con- 
sumed near the place where they are raised. When 
a factory is situated in the very midst of such small 



120 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

cultures, a beautiful series of exchanges or barter 
goes on, and the laborers have all these sorts of 
supplies right at their doors, to be paid for in their 
goods. There is more profit in these small things, 
such as garden vegetables, dairies, chickens, eggs, 
pigs, lambs, green corn, and the like ; and at the 
same time they are more healthy and acceptable to 
the operatives, carried fresh, as they would be, for 
their use. Around the large cities and in other 
places the lands are in small lots, and suit this 
sort of culture, whilst the heavy grain products lie 
further back. The small operations in agriculture 
take up the weaker hands, whose labor in such 
things is as productive as stronger labor on the 
grain and pork farms. We see in New England, 
where many manufacturing establishments are in 
successful operation, the stimulating effects thereof 
upon agriculture. The fields are brushed up and 
manured, cleared of stones and briers, and in a state 
of high productiveness, exactly in proportion as 
they are nearer to or farther from some manufac- 
turing village or consuming population, or a people 
able to purchase them. In other parts of that 
country, where there is no water-power or facili- 
ties to induce such establishments, we see agricul- 
ture neglected ; the farms look 'exhausted, and the 
fences and improvements dilapidating, the stones, 
briers, and jungle prevail, except in some corner 
naturally fertile, where the owner cultivates a little 
for his own use. You may tell, therefore, by the 
state of the agriculture, when you approach or re- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 121 

cede from these manufacturing points. When re- 
mote, the husbandmen are off, trading on their wits, 
or fishing to gain a little money, which a neglected 
farm denies to them. A population consumes, even 
of provisions, according to its ability ; if poor and 
without money to purchase, or valuable products to 
barter, they crimp, and pinch, and live in a hand- 
and-mouth way, upon inconceivably little, a mere 
pittance, that is an object with none to supply, and 
which stimulates nothing. The agriculture of Eng- 
land shows us what a home market can effect. 
That country, whose soil by nature is poor and moist, 
fit only for grass, and becomes a grain country only 
by intense manuring, and such efforts to counteract 
its moisture and cold character, is now a garden. It 
is the most substantially cultivated country in the 
world, taken in connection with the neatness, style, 
comfort, and independence of the inhabitants. The 
home market is the magic that accomplished all 
this. The certainty, steadiness, and high prices of 
the home supply, have converted a cold, moist, in- 
clement soil into a garden, the pride of their coun- 
try ; shining as it does with its neat cottages, tow- 
ering spires, and meeting the eye every where with 
its substantial wealth and lordly comfort. I do 
not say that it is right to build up a home market 
at such a sacrifice as the corn laws have created 
for them. Our agriculture, with our soil and cli- 
mate, would flourish under a hundredth part of the 
impulse she gave to hers, and we could grow rich 
on one-fourth of the prices paid there — we could 



122 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

give to ours all possible extent and productiveness, 
without taxing any other business ; without the 
curses of the impoverished operatives ; indeed, it 
would follow and obey all the movements, and be 
affected by all the operations of manufactures, and 
be sufficiently stimulated by their prosperity. With- 
out the aid of a home market our agriculture would 
be the semi-barbarous, log-cabin state described 
above, without pride, style, or taste, and an entire 
stranger to wealth and the higher enjoyments. 
This would shut in all the prospects of industry ; 
beyond there would be no hopes, no aspirations, but 
a fixed state of semi-barbarism to the Americans ; 
what the tent is to the Tartar, or the wigwam to 
the Indian, in which whole generations grow up, 
without refinement or taste, and what is worse, 
without any advance in the great march of civiliza- 
tion. For all which they substitute fighting, and 
drinking, and gambling, and hunting. As soon as 
you give to agriculture a market, they become 
proud, generous, refined, and hospitable. Having 
the means, they become educated, and throw 
around their houses and gardens decorations and 
shrubbery, get fine furniture, and live in social re- 
finement. Such agriculturists have the information 
to make them valuable to their country, the pride to 
have their rights respected, and really become the 
substantial yeomanry of which we have heard so 
much. Manufactures, therefore, are invaluable to 
agriculture, by furnishing this home market, by 
stimulating and ensuring to them fair prices for 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 123 

their products, particularly provisions, and insti- 
tuting that beautiful system of mutual dependence 
and supply, that takes up all the productions, how- 
ever varied, and all the goods fabricated. There is 
nothing so pleasing, varied, and enriching as this 
barter ; nothing so certain in its operation, so com- 
fortable in its consequences, and so sure in its re- 
sults. The flour trade, one of the heaviest, most 
bulky, and valuable, is already vastly stimulated 
by our manufactories, as few as they are. We sell 
now more than twice as much flour to them as we 
export, not less than one million barrels ; corn, 
pork, beef, bacon, potatoes, and fish, in the same 
proportions. The best estimates taken from our 
census, and from such facts as the large and con- 
centrated establishments of that kind furnish, show 
us that our agriculturists sell of heavy, bulky pro- 
ducts, such as flour, corn, pork, beef, rye, buck- 
wheat, oats, barley, rice, fish, potatoes, and butter, 
cheese, fowls, and all the small cultures, not less 
than twenty million dollars worth to our manufac- 
tories. This estimate is no doubt far under the 
mark, if we include the thousands of interchanges 
that each settlement carries on that cannot be no- 
ticed, such as the thousands of smiths, shoemakers, 
tailors, wagon-makers, gunsmiths, and the like, that 
are scattered through each and every settlement. 

Cotton. Let us now see how the great staples 
would be affected by the establishing of manufac- 
tories. The portion of them that constitute raw 
materials are of course favorably affected, and im- 



124 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

mediately allied with, or entering into, the operation 
on reciprocal principles. We will begin with cotton. 
After the full history and account that we have en- 
tered into in reference to the growth, production, 
and price of this great staple, we need say but lit- 
tle. It is the great interest of this country emphat- 
ically, and worth all the others. It is the resource 
of the whole country, fills our coffers, employs our 
ships, takes up our capital, and furnishes one-half 
of the whole ability that we have, or that we wield 
abroad, and enables us to buy what we ought to 
make at home. This staple has perhaps done harm 
in this respect ; for, if we had it not all the time, 
we could not have continued to buy so much £om 
Europe, and would long ere this have made at home 
all we needed. Nothing will be more benefited, 
however, by manufactories, than this great staple. 
It will then have a home market ; and, as we said 
before, there will be a competition that will benefit 
the growers of it. As a raw material, its very life 
and soul is consumption. The interchanges it will 
lead to, the numerous agents necessary to buy and 
forward this bulky article, the vast amount of ton- 
nage necessary to convey it to the places where it is 
wanted, the diffusion of the goods made to the in- 
terior, through our railroads and canals, all together 
give to it a consequence that no other staple pro- 
duction possesses. It would be hard to calculate 
the thousands of interests affected, the thousands of 
springs of industry it will touch and stimulate, and 
the thousands of persons to whom it will not only 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 125 

give employment, but enrich. The general effect, 
too, on the whole nation, its resources and inde- 
pendence, politically speaking, will be great. There 
is no interest that ought to hail the establishment 
of manufactures louder than this, both in reference 
to its supplies and markets ; yet nearly all the 
growers of this great staple are extremely hostile 
to manufactures. It is discouraging to a patriot 
and a political economist to see this hostility from 
so enlightened a source; to see thatjprejudices and 
party do carry on blindly a whole people to the 
most suicidal acts, without giving them time to 
think and calculate their own interests. The 
shelves of every merchant would convince them, if 
they would look, that all their supplies are already 
cheaper, and better in quality, and better fitted for 
their purposes, than they were formerly ; and this 
brought about by a partial or very imperfect carry- 
ing on of manufactures. Their own factors tell 
them that the American spinners, by their compe- 
tition, are worth annually two cents to the cotton 
market. Reason, too, tells us that a great deal 
more cotton is used now by the circumstance of 
the Americans making coarse goods, weighing hea- 
vier, and out of our own cotton, than would be if 
we got those things from England, because she 
would make them much lighter and out of the 
worthless Surats. Our taking the coarse goods 
market from England will banish altogether these 
Surats, because they will not do for fine goods such 
as then would be left to England to make. 



126 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

Every point of view in which an inquiring mind 
would look at this subject, w T ould lead to the con- 
viction that the cotton culture would be more ben- 
efited by a tariff than any other. It would derive 
some benefit in having the agriculture taken up in 
provisions, leaving it less overdone, or somewhat 
unclogged, by having a part of those engaged 
drawn off, and leaving room to the slaves residing 
in those districts to remain there, instead of moving 
south to clog the cotton culture. When a people, 
however, take a set on party feeling, nothing can 
convince them ; and so prejudiced are their minds, 
that when benefits do flow in to them, they ascribe 
them to a wrong cause. They charge the low 
prices, which are literally the effect of a clogged or 
overloaded market in regard to cotton, to tariff op- 
erations. Nothing has led me so much to despair 
of this country and its institutions, as the want of 
thought and the right understanding of their inter- 
ests that these otherwise enlightened and indepen- 
dent cotton growers have manifested, and their 
disposition, in the most reckless way, to throw all 
to the four winds, and their own interests among 
them. Manufactures cannot fail to benefit all raw 
materials. An increased consumption of cotton in 
any part of the globe, in the present free and en- 
terprising intercourse, will be useful, because mar- 
kets find their level ; and let a vacuum or demand 
be created in any quarter of the globe, the article 
would rush in to fill it. 

Tobacco. Tobacco, as an article of luxury, 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 127 

which it is, would be benefited by the establish- 
ment of manufactures. In a condensed population 
and a social state, snuffing and smoking particular- 
ly would be greatly promoted. Tobacco being an 
article of luxury, its use can be dispensed with 
whenever the circumstances or funds of the indi- 
viduals are limited. Manufactures would give to 
thousands the ability to enjoy this raw material, 
and its consumption would be much increased. 
As a raw material, however, it enters into sundry 
manufactures of its own, such as the stemming of it, 
chewing tobacco, snuff, segars, and so forth, em- 
ploying many hands. This staple culture takes up 
most of the slaves of Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, 
and Missouri, and would be as much relieved as 
any other staple by drawing off any labor from it, 
or diverting still more from entering it. It is an 
overdone and clogged market now, and should join 
in the establishment of manufactures in order to 
free it, secure to it a living profit, and some in- 
creased consumption. Europe encourages our to- 
bacco staple, by prohibiting their own people its 
culture, with a view to levy a tax on its introduc- 
tion. Strange to say, this staple is worth to the 
exchequers of England, France, and Germany, 
thirty million pounds a year, a sum that would buy, 
twice over, the whole body of it here where grown. 
Any revolution that would disturb the monopolies 
in Europe of this article, and allow it to be culti- 
vated there, (for all these countries favor its growth,) 



128 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

would prostrate the whole interest here, and al- 
most wipe it away as a staple. 

Rice. Rice, as a staple, will be favorably affect- 
ed by manufactures. It is considered by the la- 
boring population in Europe and America as an 
article of luxury, but in the East as an article of 
necessity, and the cheapest of all food. Taking it 
in its character of a luxury, the consumption will 
increase with the ability to buy it, and with the 
elegance that a people wish to give to their diet, 
and much more of it, therefore, will be used in the 
manufacturing districts. The price of it is as 
low as that of any grain, and at the same time 
more variety given to it in the routine of cookery. 
It is also a healthy food, and wherever it appears, 
rather indicates a style of living above the ordinary 
vulgar one that runs with laboring people. There 
might be a beautiful barter instituted between the 
Carolinas and Georgia, that grow rice, and New 
England, that manufactures, and that might be led 
to consume largely of it. Many of the flour dis- 
tricts that furnish our manufacturers with that ar- 
ticle, such as the Genesee country, in New-York, 
are so much taken up themselves with manufac- 
tures, that they want very little of that sort of 
things, and have to be paid in specie for their flour. 
That never could happen between the manufactur- 
ers and the rice planters ; the latter would want 
all the time for their rice, domestic goods ; and the 
mutual principle of barter would be permanently 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 129 

established between them, to the benefit of both. 
If the manufacturers could get into the habit of 
eating boiled rice in place of bread with all their 
meals, the consumption of rice would increase 
much, and a better food in the bread way, as well 
as a cheaper one, be established. When the habit 
of taking boiled rice with meat, and butter, and 
milk is formed, it is never changed, and they be- 
come fonder of it, than of either corn or wheat 
bread. Rice costing two cents a pound is cheaper 
than corn meal at eighty cents a bushel, or flour at 
four dollars a barrel; is easier transported and 
handled, and every way easier prepared in cookery. 
I think those who are concerned in feeding opera- 
tives and laborers, would find their account in every 
way, in introducing its use. Whatever is cheapest 
and best, is almost sure to be found out by our 
enterprising people, and I may take it for granted 
that the staple of rice is destined to be still more 
benefited by the introduction of manufactures. 

Hemp and Flax. Hemp and Flax are raw 
materials, and destined to be greatly benefited by 
the introduction of manufactures. Already the 
hemp interest is far advanced, for we make nearly 
all our cotton bagging, amounting, for three million 
bales, to eighteen million yards, and all the cord- 
age or rope to bind them, out of our own hemp. 
We are now aiming to supply our navy and marine 
with hemp and every thing hempen, and all the 
rope used for a thousand purposes, in agriculture, 

10 



130 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

commerce, and manufactures. Hemp is about to 
be exported as a raw material, and, at three to four 
dollars a hundred, can be taken to Europe and sold 
alongside of the Russian in all their markets. 
Kentucky and Missouri, supposing its culture con- 
fined to slavery and rich land, can furnish any 
amount wanted. As the prices of tobacco and pro- 
visions go down, or become dull and uncertain, will 
those states go to hemp as a resource, or rather an 
alternative for slave labor. They will thus vary 
their production, and find their account in it. I 
have known districts grow rich by having two or 
three staple productions to lean upon, and always 
hitting a good market with one or another of them. 
Hemp is a very exhausting crop, and unless the soil 
be of the deepest limestone fertility, naturally, 
will not endure its culture long. The soil in the 
two states of Kentucky and Missouri is literally in- 
exhaustible, and can stand the hemp and tobacco 
culture all the time. Those states too are deeply 
imbued with slavery, and under a treatment in re- 
gard to them, that will insure a vast increase of 
that sort of labor. The hemp crop, therefore, be- 
ing furnished both with a soil and suitable labor, 
and stimulated, in addition, by the wants of manu- 
facturers, who will pay for it in a sort of goods that 
will be wanted in those states, will insure it a val- 
uable product to them, and a great resource to the 
country. The flax can be produced in any part of 
the United States, and by either slave or free labor. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 131 

When the article is wanted, either as a valuable 
export or raw material, it can be furnished in any 
quantity. • 

If a protecting tariff should insure the making 
of linen up to the consumption of this country, and 
all things made of flax, it would stimulate its cul- 
ture, and render it quite a staple production ; not 
only to supply a valuable raw material, but for ex- 
port. Several raw staples have not in this country 
become much cultivated, until some manufacture 
started up that required them. Then the country 
is put upon its resources, and gives such attention 
to them, as to bring them rapidly into notice. This 
has been the case with hemp, and will with flax, 
when we shall have advanced a few steps further, 
When wanted for consumption at home, the supply 
is sure to go beyond the wants of the manufac- 
turers, and become an article for export. An inven- 
tion is now in successful operation that cards the 
flax and cotton together, and makes a very pleasant 
sort of goods, which will be extensively used for 
summer, because both lighter and cooler than cot- 
ton goods. In the present populous nature of Ire- 
land, a state where all its soil will be wanted for 
provisions, she will not be able to grow raw mate- 
rials-— -will procure raw flax in this country, and 
save the soil necessary to grow it on. The fact 
that she cannot spare soil enough to ripen her seed 
upon, is a proof that she would not spare soil to it 
at all, if she could get her supply elsewhere ; for 
flax that matures its seed, does not make a fine, 



132 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

soft, white goods ; it has to be cut green, or unripe 
to have the lint very fine ; and hence their habit of 
procuring the seed from this country. A fortiori 
we could make still more profit by preparing the 
lint than the seed, and will do it when any thing 
at home stimulates its production. 

Silk. Silk is going to be produced in this coun- 
try in vast amount and of a good quality. The 
experiments already made go to show that the cli- 
mate, from New England to Louisiana, is suited to 
the growth of both the worms and the tree that 
they feed upon. We are already under w T ay, and 
we will make this year half a million pounds of 
raw silk, and manufacture it all into sewing-silk 
and clothing. Several states have, in their indivi- 
dual capacity, offered bounties for the production 
of raw silk, and it may now be regarded as a cer- 
tain great staple culture of this wide region ; and 
not only furnishing raw material enough for the 
goods that we consume, but a vast raw staple for 
export. We have extra labor enough to grow all 
the silk that England and the north of Europe 
need, cheaper, and of a better quality than Italy 
and France can furnish. The sort of labor that 
we are putting to the silk culture, consists of wo- 
men and children, such as will not be missed from 
our agricultural operations. Experience supports 
this sort of a calculation, in reference to the silk 
culture; two acres of land are enough to grow 
trees upon, necessary to feed with certainty and 
ease worms enough to produce fifty pounds of raw 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 133 

silk in the hank ; and six weeks the time necessary 
to feed the worms that make it. The wife of a 
peasant or farmer and the children make the silk 
— the emolument is theirs ; they stop their school 
for the six weeks only, the feeding time, and none 
of the operations of the farm are interfered with 
by the operation, nor of their schooling. The wife 
and children make from three to live hundred dol- 
lars a year, which is a resource for books, fine 
things, and pin money, and gives a sort of indepen- 
dence very gratifying to them. This thing is proved 
in the above way, and is sure to work up into 
a vast raw staple, both for manufacturing purposes 
at home, and a large export abroad. Say that half 
a million families make their fifty pounds seach, it 
amounts to twenty-five million pounds ; an amount 
more than England manufactures, with all her 
preparation and effort. If we should by a protect- 
ing tariff stimulate this thing, it would go imme- 
diately up to this point — is sure to go ahead after 
the experiments already made, and is sure to be a 
vast resource to this country. If this nation could 
see the great, and rich, and elegant resource it has 
in both the cultivation and manufacturing of silk, 
she would immediately engage in both. Looking 
forward to what a few years will produce, a very 
pleasing picture presents itself to our view ; that 
gives the certainty of one of the richest, most valu- 
able, and elegant staples in the world. Here, too, 
were it necessary, slave labor could be well em- 
ployed, and fill up any vacuum that [might occur 



134 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

in it, or be felt in relation to its labor. Such a field 
cannot remain uncultivated, and it will be seen 
whether our Congress will have the foresight and 
the sound policy to insure the double shape of 
wealth that is ready to flow from it, the wrought 
and raw value both. When a nation engages in the 
cultivation and making of silk goods, it is indicative 
of a state of refinement in the taste, and an advance- 
ment in the civilization of its people, and connects 
it with all the luxuries and elegancies of life. 

Labor. The labor of the country of course, 
above all other things and resources, will be bene- 
fited by a protecting tariff. This is the creative 
genius that it calls into existence, and with which 
it works the wonders and magic that astonish and 
enrich. Something comes so nearly out of nothing 
under the operations of labor and industry, that we 
ought to look upon them not only with favor and 
protection, but with a sort of grateful feeling, as 
our very life's blood. It not only costs a people 
nothing to labor and produce, but is a pleasure, and 
a sure guaranty for not only the wealth created, 
but order and morality, and we may add health. 
Labor is the foundation of all wealth and all capi- 
tal, and the only inherent available resource that 
appertains to man. What avails a rich soil and a 
fine climate, and fuel, and animals, if there be no 
labor to develope them 1 no skill to fashion or mould 
them into useful forms ? Labor makes the capital 
and wealth, and capital doubles back upon labor, 
its creator, and gives to it still more efficiency and 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 135 

productiveness by preparations in machinery and 
power. The capital issuing or springing from la- 
bor, is not the ungrateful offspring ; it continually 
lends its aid, purchases protections, and secures 
new markets to productions. The ratio existing 
between labor and capital becomes geometrical in 
its operations, and by this kind of reciprocal action 
they go on to an almost unlimited existence. Hence, 
when a w T ise or fortunate nation gets the start of 
all others in the great operations of manufactures, 
commerce, and even in agriculture, it keeps it ; and 
not only keeps it, but gives to these great branches 
of national prosperity a force, a skill, and excel- 
lence, that puts the world in requisition. In such a 
case it becomes doubly necessary to secure the 
home market by ample protection to the countries 
that are behind, and in a manner subject to the 
superior start and action of that fortunate one. 
Nothing but protection will then break the spell, or 
rather the chains that hold the one thus outstrip- 
ped, to its subjugator. It is through this home 
market protection, that it walks forth to indepen- 
dence first, and afterwards to wealth, and ceases to 
be the paralyzed customer of its more active neigh- 
bor. The first duty, therefore, of all good govern- 
ment, is to look to its labor ; insure it not only full 
occupation, but the greatest productiveness. Poli- 
tical economy abhors idleness worse, if possible, 
than nature does a vacuum. It is worse than a 
vacuum, because gravity rushes forth to fill the va- 
cuum ; but idleness is a grave where lies dead and 



136 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

buried the creative genius of man, the means given 
to him by the God of Nature to improve his condi- 
tion. Most legislators, particularly in this country, 
have the cart before the horse. They inquire, 
where are our markets ? where can we trade ? in- 
stead of first looking to and stimulating labor, to 
produce or make something for those markets. 
They often build ships, or encourage the building of 
ships, as we did after our independence, before they 
have any thing to carry in them ; and parade their 
ships, begging to carry for all the world. All the 
world, when wars created difficulties, employed our 
tonnage for a short time, but soon found it better to 
employ their own, and ours became useless. We 
built towns and ships before we had much trade, 
and imported slaves that now embarrass and de- 
grade us, instead of stimulating to the best advan- 
tage the native labor of our people. The first 
great questions for a politician are as to the quan- 
tity of labor ; its productiveness ; whether it be 
employed to the best advantage ; or whether it 
could not be better engaged in other fields ; 
whether it needs stimulus to give to it more effect ; 
whether it has its market or demand secure and 
fixed ; and whether even bounties would not draw 
it forth to higher efforts and greater excellence. 
First of all, he should inquire whether there were 
any idle or unemployed persons in the wide land ; 
and what would turn them in too 1 Every hand 
wakened up from idleness, and very likely vice, is 
a clear gain to the country. That farmer that 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 137 

makes one other spear of grass to grow, rears one 
other animal, makes one yard of goods, one pound of 
iron, salt, or any other thing or production more, is 
a benefactor to his country ; and the politician that 
calls it forth, deserves the thanks and support of 
that country. That politician who unclogs any 
branch of overdone business, draws labor from it 
to others more productive, and secures the proper 
markets to all new products or operations, deserves 
double gratitude from the whole country. Why, 
then, are our politicians and statesmen so very much 
afraid of touching this point of all legitimate issue ; 
this foundation of all wealth and capital, labor? 
Why leave it to chances, whilst so much care is 
manifested for free trade 1 It would appear to one 
dropped from another world, unacquainted with all 
our interests and resources, that our whole Con- 
gress or national legislature were taken or subsi- 
dized by Europe to favor all their productions or 
operations exclusively ; even to the total disregard- 
ing of those of this country. It would seem to 
such that Great Britain sat enthroned in all our 
legislative halls and dictated all their enactments 
regulating industry and a tariff; and if told other- 
wise, could not be made to believe that some laws 
and most important regulations were not the results 
of bribes on the body politic by the superior wealth 
and foresight of older and wiser nations. Every 
idle finger will be pointed some day against those 
short-sighted and unpatriotic legislators, who left 
it in sloth, and to vice, and mischief, instead of 



138 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

stimulating it to proper action and usefulness. It 
seems that our representatives go to Congress to 
quarrel about the scant imposts, and worthless offi- 
ces and salaries that are afloat, to judge by their 
eagerness and graspings for them, without any re- 
ference to the good of the whole, or to the regula- 
tion and direction of the labor of the country. If 
they could see and realize the millions of unborn 
capital, and the wealth, and comfort, and elegance, 
and taste, that the idle' labor now in this country 
could, if really awakened and rightly directed, 
produce, they would be astonished, and not fail to 
do it as a bounden and sacred duty. A politician, 
to be able to do his duty in a way to redound to the 
advantage of his country, must study the resources 
of that country, instead of tricks of demagogues. 
He must obey the impulse of her wants, rather than 
party trainings. He must be unprejudiced in his 
mind, and not forestalled in his principles. He 
should be open to convictions, and a seeker after 
truth, facts, and results, and should be ready to seize 
upon all circumstances as they arise, that might fa- 
vor the labor and resources of the nation to which 
he belongs. 

Capital. Capital will, as a matter of course, be 
taken up, and in a permanently profitable way, by 
the introduction of manufactures. It will be want- 
ed directly for the outfit of machinery, and prepa- 
rations necessary to put in requisition the idle labor 
of the country. That labor would not only divide 
nterest for the capitalists, but a profit and support 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 139 

for itself. Capital when not permanently invested, 
merely seeking interest annually, is almost sure to 
do more harm than good, because those branches 
most depressed and in debt, are the first to come 
forward to take offered loans, to pay their old debts, 
under a hope their business will revive so as to 
justify the transaction. Alas ! soon they become 
convinced that the capitalist will absorb all and 
end in a break up for both. The indebted turns 
over his stock and substance to the loaner, who sees 
when too late that the stock turned over or closed 
upon, will be dead capital, and never reimburse the 
loan. Now that agriculture is so much overdone 
in all its varied productions, and all the stocks of 
the numerous banks too high and unsafe for certain 
investment, including those of the state loans, the 
capitalists are very desirous of some safe and per- 
manent object on which to employ their money. 
This, therefore, is the proper moment for the adop- 
tion of a protecting tariff, to give employment to 
this capital, and induce it into channels that would 
not only promise a profit to it, but the develope- 
ment of national resources. A country must feel 
more content with its capitalists, when it sees them 
so completely identified with its labor, resources, 
and raw materials, and feel some guaranty that it 
is working good. It is the part of a wise and pa- 
triotic statesman to so arrange the capital of his 
country, that it is sure to rise or fall with the coun- 
try, so as to make it the interest of the owners that 
the country should be steady, orderly, and undis- 



140 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

turbed by changes of any sort. Capitalists then 
stand upon the watchtowers, the great policies of 
the nation, and guard its best and. most substantial 
interests, by giving early notice of any deteriora- 
tion in the markets, any hazards that threaten, or 
any injurious operation of laws or regulations that 
need change or alteration. 

When the capitalists who control the labor and 
operations of a country reside abroad, and have 
of course the bulk of their means where they do 
reside, and any connections arise between the coun- 
try they properly belong to, and the one where 
they have incidentally a small portion invested, they 
become governed by their leading interest, and let 
the smaller go. When, on the contrary, they are 
wholly identified with their nation and proper 
country, they do battle for it, and exert vast influ- 
ences upon its course. A strong illustration of 
this is found in the English government, where the 
body of her capital is invested in her eight hundred 
millions of national debt. They not only aid in keep- 
ing her up with their personal efforts, but advance 
still more of their capital to insure the safety of 
the other. Her national debt, in regard to national 
safety, becomes an arch of strength ; the more 
weight, in reason, put upon it, the firmer it is, and 
the steadier it bears. A protecting tariff would 
induce much capital to come from abroad, seeking 
investment of a permanent character. So great is 
the abundance of money in England now, interest 
only two to three per cent., that much of it would 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 141 

flow hither, if a tolerable prospect were held out to 
it. This would be of no small advantage to this 
country, and insure it the means of employing all 
its labor, and developing every resource. A double 
duty devolves on politicians and statesmen, that of 
first protecting, and rendering effectual, labor, the 
basis of wealth ; and when that wealth or capital 
is realized, of protecting it, and offering it employ- 
ment in every possible way at home. This pre- 
vents it seeking investments abroad, and becoming 
alienated from the country, and in a manner alien- 
ating its owners too, for " where the treasure is 
there is the heart also." A person is in the 
nature of a hermaphrodite citizen who has his inter- 
ests divided between his own and other countries. 
His patriotism is divided, and his services cannot be 
counted on. If any thing happens to that country, 
he calls on his government to interfere and protect 
his interests there, and frequently is the means of 
involving it in war, or alliances of a doubtful or 
injurious character. 

Iron, Coal, Copper, Lead, &c. The iron and 
coal, lead and copper, and other minerals, including 
the clays and alkalies, are immediately concerned 
in a protecting tariff. They would all be first devel- 
oped as raw T materials, and then enter deeply into 
nearly all sorts of manufactures. No class of raw 
materials furnish so much and contribute so. much 
to success in all branches, where labor is engaged, 
and all abound in our country. The iron and the 
coal lie together, and can blow into existence at 






142 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

the first blast, all the raw materials necessary to a 
thousand other branches of manufactures, and in 
this compound ratio become a double source of 
profit. Were these very useful materials uncover- 
ed and brought into actual bright existence by a 
tariff, we would go on to such an excess, as would 
swell the volume of our raw materials for export 
to a vast amount. The world has so much use for 
these valuable products, and in many countries they 
are worked to such disadvantage and at such ex- 
pense, that a great market would open for them. 
One iron mountain of fine ore, in Missouri alone, 
yielding seventy per cent, of the purest malleable 
iron, could supply the whole world, if rightly 
worked. Equally abundant is the coal, copper, 
lead, salt, clay, marble, and all such things. This 
country, like a young giant, knows not its strength 
or its resources, because it has never exerted the 
one or examined the other. Nothing is wanted to 
bring forth all this, but a permanent policy, a cer- 
tainty of protection, a security of the home mar- 
ket. All would then come forth and show 
themselves ; capital, labor, raw materials, a mar- 
ket, wealth, comfort, elegance, taste, and indepen- 
dence. As soon as confidence was established, 
they would flash forth, as the gas lights when 
touched by a match. No country is underlaid 
so universally with valuable minerals ; and they 
lie in its extended fletz or secondary formation 
in horizontal strata, that can be followed into the 
thousands of hills and ridges ; and lying above the 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 143 

valleys, can be poured forth, without shafts or 
drainings, to the fertile plains, water powers, and 
navigations that are there found. Had this young 
giant, with its free limbs, hold of these mines of 
wealth, in the real skilful way, she could glut or 
monopolize all markets, both in the raw and 
wrought state. These hidden treasures need a 
protecting tariff to uncover them, its inducement 
to make them available, and wiser statesmen than 
we yet have, to put all in train, and on the certain* 
ty of the reality. 

Internal Improvements. Our internal improve- 
ments, railroads, and canals, and steamboats, would 
be benefited by the establishment of manufac~ 
tures, for the transportation on them would be more 
voluminous and varied. The raw materials give 
much more support to lines of intercommunication, 
than the wrought goods that a country needs. In 
the carrying of raw materials and agricultural 
supplies to our manufacturers, and interchanging 
with them for their goods, the whole operation is 
American, and as gratifying as profitable to Ainer* 
icans. When, however, a sneaking and selfish for- 
eigner uses them to start along his flimsy dry 
goods, perhaps half smuggled in, too light and use- 
less to pay much toll, yet valuable enough to 
greatly tax our industry, if bought and used, the 
scene becomes changed, and the patriot feels that 
such great works are prostituted to unworthy pur- 
poses, for which they should not be constructed or 
intended. The interchanges that would go on be- 



144 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY, 

tween the agriculturists and manufacturers, and 
the growers or producers of the raw materials, and 
those who give to them available shapes, or ship 
them off to a foreign market, would be great, and 
offer a most pleasing picture of prosperity. The 
capitalists interested in these works of improvement 
then would feel that they were subserving the 
whole country, were the very arteries that gave 
diffusion to the very heart's blood of the country's 
industry, and that they were finding a profitable 
dividend from their investments in them. Such 
works are the proper handmaids of a home mar- 
ket and home industry, and enable them to meet 
the demand at all the points, and in every shape. 

There is something wrong, when w T e see a peo- 
ple entering upon great works of intercommunica- 
tion, before they have developed their resources in 
agriculture and manufactures. It is like letting 
an enemy into the heart of the country, a serpent 
into our very bosoms. Some foreign nations then 
do not fail to rush in their productions and goods 
upon such invitations, and through such openings, 
to the forestalling of the market, and if unchecked, 
to the prevention of any domestic supply. When a 
nation is ready for meeting its home supplies, and 
wishes to bring the raw material and the manufac- 
tories together in a cheap and rapid way, or the 
agricultural provisions in contact and barter with 
the articles of our manufacturers, then all facility 
should be given. Again, when wine and provi- 
sion districts, which of all others most need inter- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 145 

change, require to be brought together, or when 
valuable minerals, iron, coal, lead, copper, zinc, 
clay, and such things, in train of development, 
and required by the manufacturers, need to be 
brought forth for use and interchange, or when 
agricultural products find it to their interest to 
look abroad for a market, and require to be 
brought cheaply to the seaports for shipment, 
then in all such cases these roads, and canals, and 
carrying boats, should be constructed, and the 
country will find its account in it. Build not for 
your rivals, open not your doors until you know 
who or what is to enter, are wholesome adages, 
and comport with common prudence. 

The impulses of liberty often carry us too far 
in reference to other things. We feel free and at 
liberty to act at home as we please, and we natu- 
rally extend the privilege to other nations and 
other people, in their communications with us. 
Patriotism, we find at last, is something exclusive 
and selfish, and like charity begins at home ; but 
frequently, before we find that out, our best flow- 
ers of commerce have been plucked by foreigners, 
let into equal advantages as our own citizens. 
They are apt in such a case to have more than 
equal advantages, because they stand organized in 
a way to flood our country with their productions 
to the exclusion and suppression of our own, and 
continue to tax us all the time, by the habit of 
looking to them at first for supplies, that we un- 
cautiously got into. The remoteness from Eu- 

11 



146 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

ropean supply has built up many manufactories in 
the West, particularly of iron. Then all works 
we make, and all facilities we create, redound 
more to others' good than our own. Early modes 
of supply, becoming a national habit, stay fixed 
upon us, and we continue them after it becomes 
our interest to develope our own resources, and 
supply ourselves. National habits are as obsti- 
nate and more so than individual, because it is 
harder to convince and move a body politic to 
change them than it is an individual. Politicians 
should guard against any foreign manner of supply- 
ing articles of necessity, and easy modes of getting 
to a foreign market for them, because the habit 
springs up of thus getting them, and connects so 
many interests with it, that it is hard to break it 
off. We have so many small ties to sever that 
the great interest, however apparent the call for 
the change, finds a difficulty in breaking through 
them ; and we often continue to trade to a disad- 
vantage rather than make the necessary effort to 
change it. Nations are easily lulled to sleep, and 
in a state of contentedness, when their incomes are 
very scant, if they never knew a different condition 
of things; and it takes more stimulants to get 
them out of such a state than it would to have 
started them right at first. When a people show 
energy enough to make a revolution and assert 
their liberties and rights, then, whilst the spirit is 
up and the human mind excited, is the time to es- 
tablish their political economy, and show them the 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 147 

true policy they ought to pursue in regard to trade 
and manufactures. Their habits then are unfixed 
and reason and good sense would be their guide, 
which, aided by the effort they were then under in 
regard to their liberties, would easily connect those 
great interests with it, so as to insure them com- 
plete success. Our lines of improvement therefore 
cannot fail to subserve our manufacturers, and be 
aided by them in making their dividends on the 
capital invested, carrying as they would an infinite 
variety of things, and leading to such multifarious 
interchanges. 

Commerce. Our commerce will be enriched by 
the establishment of manufactories, as we have 
said before. The domestic trade, embracing the 
home market, will take up its capital and its mer- 
chants in a more extensive and varied way, and 
more actively and profitably, when all is of our own 
growth and production, than it does now at this 
time. Our tonnage will be much engaged in a 
coastwise and inland traffic, that will be immense- 
ly active, and all of it our own. Our foreign ton- 
nage too will still have the surplus raw materials 
to carry abroad, and bring back such luxuries as 
we cannot produce or grow at home, and the great 
resource of the fisheries to scour after, which will 
leave it but little impaired. I will venture to say 
that our commerce will gain more by the active 
and varied coasting trade, the inland and canal 
interchanges, the mutual supplies and carryings 
of the agricultural and manufactured articles, 



148 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and the increase of wealth and productions conse- 
quent upon them, than it will lose in the foreign 
operations. Quick returns, active interchanges, 
safe operations, steadiness of market, equable cur- 
rency and insurance, and certain, if small, profits, 
are the life and soul of all legitimate commerce. 
It is in such eternal rounds of active and safe 
traffickings that wealth accumulates the most 
surely. In a commerce based upon domestic in- 
terchanges more persons and agents, as well as 
more tonnage and capital, are employed, and so 
connected with it as to gain a living and habits of 
business which fit them for useful citizens. There 
is more honesty in a domestic circle of trade and 
supply, for character is always at stake, and to be 
cherished as an acceptable quality in it ; and there 
will be less cheating, less defrauding, less smug- 
gling, and glossing over of inferior goods, than in 
any foreign trade. 

One capital advantage, and worth a thousand fac- 
titious ones, is the exemption from overtrading, and 
those ruinous vibrations in prices, that an uncertain 
commerce leads to. One time the market is clog- 
ged, at another time bare ; the thousands rush in 
and carry that market immediately to the most op- 
posite extremes alike ruinous to the importing mer- 
chant, the capitalist, and the consumer. When 
an inducement leads to overtrading, millions of 
debts are created abroad, and, as we have said, the 
banks run down, the specie is borne off, and a gene- 
ral distress invades the land, and ends in as general 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 149 

a bankruptcy. We showed before that immorality, 
discredit, false value, uncertainty, as well as the 
loss of capital and specie, attend it. We have seen 
more money lost in one fatal year than we gained 
in half? dozen. Our foreign commerce, too, is in- 
vaded by wars, blockades, the dangers of the seas, 
the changes of duties, and the whims of other na- 
tions; whilst our own domestic intercourse lies snug 
in port, or glides safely from place to place, alike 
secure from the weather, the enemy, and over- 
trading. Commerce has as deep an interest in se- 
curing the home market and supply as manufac- 
tures can have— they are both taken up in supply- 
ing it, par nobile sororum. Less money is necessary 
to conduct the home operations, because our credit 
is more available near home, and most of the com- 
merce is a mere barter or exchange ; whereas, in a 
foreign trade, specie has often to go and lie out of 
an interest pending the voyage. The money ex- 
changes too are less affected in a home trade, for 
we know the market better, what its condition and 
supply is, govern ourselves accordingly, and are 
never thrown so much out as to pay much for ex- 
change. When commerce confines itself to a legiti- 
mate home trade, mostly of a barter or exchange 
character, it needs but little ready money, and 
leaves the more for other purposes, with which to 
establish manufactories for instance, to uncover 
the valuable minerals of the country, or go into 
plate, and luxuries of taste and living, which make 
the wealth of a country. Commerce has no patri- 



150 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

otism in it, when based upon foreign supplies. Its 
Teachings are often illegitimate, and its profits com- 
port not with the prosperity of any one country. It 
is a cosmopolite, and cannot feel devotedly, cannot 
act exclusively, nor make sacrifices for any country. 
Of all occupations and professions it is the one 
that ought most to love and be the readiest to 
lay a helping hand to its proper country ; and ought, 
therefore, to trade exclusively in that country's 
productions. Banks become sure depositories, 
ready aids of business operations, in the short-loan 
way ; and centres for the employment of active 
capital, when not under the influences and fluctua- 
tions of foreign trade, leading to overtrade. Capi- 
tal derives its powers of accumulation from labor 
made productive, and is of course deeply concerned 
in, and benefited by, a protecting tariff, that would 
enable labor not only to employ it, but insure its 
increase. 

Currency, Sjwcie, and Banks. The currency, 
circulation, specie, and banking operations of the 
country, would, as a whole, or in severalty, be 
greatly benefited by a protecting tariff. Such a 
tariff would, as we have seen, give employment 
and accumulation to capital ; — I will here add, will 
give a sound and steady currency, and a circula- 
tion as sound, and based upon specie. The banks, 
the proper guardians and depositories of the money, 
would issue those deposits in convertible paper, 
that would give facility in carrying from place to 
place, or, what is still better, exchanges ; and keep 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 151 

the whole up in a steady and equable value that 
would be felt. No overreachings or overtradings 
to derange this convertible currency, cast suspi- 
cion on it, make runs on the banks, or drafts of 
specie. All would go on smoothly, and the regu- 
lating spring being in this country instead of Eu- 
rope, would be under our own control. Specula- 
tion must have a wide field where the imagination 
must have room to act, and uncertainty appertain 
to the operation, before it runs wild, and endan- 
gers wholesome trade, changes values and exchan- 
ges. In a close, home, snug market, all its demands 
and supplies are understood, all its wants known 
to all, and all its capacities calculated every day or 
month, and met accordingly, without excitement or 
derangement. Speculation runs wild in reference 
to foreign markets, scarcely ever the home. Cir- 
culation, and currency, and banks, and exchange 
are the indices of a steady, wholesome market, or 
an uncertain foreign one, as they are affected. An 
alarm in commerce, like the panics often encoun- 
tered in armies, spreads from uncertain action or 
small causes, when darkness or confusion prevents 
the true character of the danger being seen, and 
gathers force by its own derangement, until all 
are prostrated before its wild bearings. A specie 
basis is the true one for a circulating currency, so 
long as trade is without excitement, or its balances 
undisturbed ; but when speculation sweeps along 
with its alarms and runs, this specie basis, like the 
rock foundation of a fine building in an earthquake, 



152 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

is soonest upheaved and thrown prostrate. It is 
not the foundation that we can mend, but the cause 
of the overthrow avoid. Those nations are to be 
envied, that go along the plain high road to wealth 
and comfort, under safe operations of labor and 
commerce, and keep in the proper channels and in 
equal values, not only the currency concerned and 
the exchanges, but the values of all the commodi- 
ties that are" the objects of the daily exchanges 
and operations. 

Independence. The independence of our coun- 
try will be deeply benelited, and placed on a firm 
and secure footing, by a protecting tariff. I have 
shown that we still have to depend on foreign mar- 
kets for many articles of the first necessity, and for 
nearly all of our luxuries. The important and 
every day indispensable articles of iron, steel, salt, 
coal, copper, blankets, flannels, carpetings, saltpe- 
tre, and such other things, arc not (to the shame of 
the country be it said) yet made at home, up to 
more than one-half of the consumption. I have 
shown that in the last war with England, we had 
not these things, and had to take them from our 
enemy under a license disgraceful in its character, 
and still more disgracefully connived at by our gov- 
ernment. Near thirty years have since elapsed, 
and we do not yet make and produce these things. 
This puts to outrage all experience and sufferings 
on this subject, and our better knowledge of the 
facts goes for nothing. What is any government 
worth in the public estimation, that would let an 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 153 

occasion of this kind pass as a thing of course, and 
not profit by its lessons 1 All our luxuries, both of 
the table and style, stand back ; none furnished 
at home — all got abroad. No citizen can pretend 
to style and taste, and the comforts and elegances 
of a gentleman, without filling his house, his cellar, 
and ornamenting his person, from abroad. Were 
all these things made and produced at home, we 
would all have a prouder feeling, a more indepen- 
dent and bold manner, and be better patriots and 
citizens, and then only feel and act like true Amer- 
icans. We could then lean upon the bosom of a 
rich, and honored, and refined country, and try to 
be worthy of it. Had we not seen and felt the 
truth of the fact, we never a priori would have 
believed for a moment, that any nation would, by 
a brave and bold effort, establish liberty and inde- 
pendence, without immediately, as a first principle, 
looking to and insuring, by proper laws and pro- 
tection, the production of all things necessary 
to the daily wants of the people, and the indepen- 
dence and defences of its government. These 
United States have too truly shown a case to the 
contrary of all this ; and, after a struggle that call- 
ed down the applause of all the world upon them, 
have slouched on in their productions and consump- 
tions, as it were by accident, regardless of any sys- 
tem that covered their wants, secured their indepen- 
dence, and guaranteed wealth. When we did 
awake to these things, we found our hands mana- 
cled by foreign ties and bonds, and domestic party 



154 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

spirit, in such a way that we could not act. Self- 
ish and interested foreigners were offering sacrifices 
upon our altars and desecrating our hearths, that 
should have been free and sacred to our own people 
only. We were told to sleep on ; they would take 
care of our valuable staples, and vouchsafe a sup- 
ply of goods to us on their terms. Like the young 
and dissipated spendthrift, we sink back into sloth 
and inefficiency, and leave all to chance, or what 
is worse, to interested counsellors. The feelings 
of pride, as we said, that run with a full and ele- 
gant supply of all we want, are very important to 
a nation, and awaken patriotism and love of coun- 
try. We look with but little satisfaction on the fine 
things around us, unless we can feel that they are 
a part of our country, and supplied at home. 
Among the civilized nations of the world, we are 
the only one that depends for articles of defence, of 
war, of independence, and for daily consumption, 
on foreign countries — perhaps on enemies. Why 
have we earned this not proud but strange and 
dear-bought distinction 1 Can we afford to act 
differently from the rest of the world, and put at 
nought all experience, all reason upon the subject? 
We have not the inherent energy and union of ac- 
tion that can dispense with such aids. We are a 
divided, scattered, and undecided people on all 
emergencies, and need all these facilities to give us 
any means of prompt action, where our rights are 
invaded. We have had to bear with insults for 
years, and leave them unresented, because we knew 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 155 

that we had not the things necessary to war and 
defence, and because we felt that our population 
would suffer during the struggle, for most of the 
necessaries, and all the luxuries. Witness the ten 
years of insult before we fought England the last 
time, and then, owing to our divisions in relation to 
manufactures, began the contest in our shirts, to- 
tally unprepared. 

Information. Information will be improved by 
the establishment of manufactories, and morality 
not injuriously affected, nor the health or constitu- 
tion impaired, when carried on as done in New 
England. In order to apply the Lancastrian moni- 
torial system of education to any population, it is 
necessary to have them condensed into close settle- 
ments. This very sweeping, cheap, and efficient 
plan cannot follow people into the woods ; cannot 
flourish on the frontier, where they could not be 
gathered together, and made to teach each other, 
and sympathize together. In the manufacturing 
villages the children, proper subjects for this sort 
of school, are crowded together, and can be col- 
lected at the ringing of a bell, enough to fill the 
largest sort of a room. A little money serves for 
the purpose; and the human mind advances to 
usefulness and information in solid column, support- 
ed by each other's sympathies. At night, when the 
day's labor is over, the ringing of the same bell will 
call the adults, male and female, not to gin shops, 
but to lecture rooms, filled with books, apparatus^ 
and specimens, and a lecturer, that can engage. 



156 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

amuse, and instruct them. If the selfishness of the 
English capitalists, owners of the factories, had not 
been in the way, and a start taken of the gin 
shops by these schools and lectures, their opera- 
tives would not at this day be so degraded, igno- 
rant, and dissipated. They would have found 
amusement as well as the delights of information in 
these rooms, and been a more valuable and useful 
class. In this country we carry the facility of in- 
formation and of education into the factory villages 
and towns, and find it effectual. The rising gene- 
ration are all taught ; the adults attend lectures, 
and become even scientific. Self-esteem and the 
moral principle take hold of them, and lead to a 
care and providence that instantly banish want 
and suffering, and pretty much dissipation and vice. 
The philanthropists connected with these New 
England manufacturing villages now challenge 
a comparison between their operatives and the 
same number of agriculturists in that or any 
country, both as to information, taste, decency, 
providence, and virtue ; and very disinterested per- 
sons do not hesitate to say that all is in favor of the 
operatives. We have lost nothing, then, in moral- 
ity, have gained much in decency and taste, much 
in providence and care, much in character, and even 
religion. I may add as last, but not least, that they 
have still greater and more striking advantages in 
wealth and productiveness. 

We have now gone over the whole ground, ex- 
amined every interest candidly and fairly, and 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 157 

seen that the introduction of manufactures by a 
protecting tariff would subserve and promote all, 
collectively and severally. The reasoning, facts, 
and arguments brought forward, will be conclusive 
to the minds of all that are unprejudiced, and take 
time to examine them. To the patriot, a picture of 
prosperity and national independence is presented 
that cannot fail to please and delight him, — to the 
statesman, enough to bring him into the support of 
all that is wanted to complete and effectuate its 
realities, — to the agriculturist, a rich harvest and a 
varied resource, — to the merchant, a better basis of 
trade, with certain wealth, and fewer dangers, — to 
the capitalist, a certain and sure employment for 
his money, and every prospect of an increase of 
it, — to the slaveholder, some hope of more profit, — 
and to the manufacturer, the gratitude of his coun- 
try, as well as a harvest of wealth and comfort. 
Nothing is wanting but a single act of Congress, 
giving, in the first instance, the home market, which 
would be inducement enough to realize the whole, 
and cover all the ground. Let us up and act, and 
make our country worth living in. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

FOREIGN COMMERCE. 



Let us now inquire, what political economy, 
under the present circumstances of our country and 



158 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

its foreign commerce, should and ought to do for 
that commerce, to place it on the proper ground. 
We have seen how the establishment of manufac- 
tories would affect it, and have inquired whether 
it be overdone or not, taken in its present state. 
Now we will try to ascertain, whether our foreign 
commerce might not be placed on a better footing 
than it now stands on, by some enactments of our 
Congress, or treaties entered into with foreign gov- 
ernments, in relation thereto. We, or rather our 
politicians, or more properly still, our demagogues, 
have always been too busy studying party inter- 
ests, and too much under the influence of party 
spirit, to think enough about the great relations of 
commerce and manufactures, to understand them, 
or know any thing about their bearings. Hence 
our manufacturing interests are a foot-ball, contin- 
ually bandied about, and up and down, until no 
one knows on what to count. Our commerce has 
taken a little better care of itself ; and had it been 
left entirely alone, it would by its great activity, 
and inherent spring and elasticity, have placed it- 
self on a good footing, or a better one than it now 
rests on. We are a great people in our own esti- 
mation, and are continually experimenting in regard 
to the most practical of all pursuits, commerce. 
Our politicians, principally of the Jefferson-demo- 
cratic school, hit on, as they thought, a great prin- 
ciple, that of reciprocity ; and held it forth to the 
commercial world in all the confidence of an em- 
piric. Our Congress were so tickled with the idea, 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 159 

or discovery, that they passed a general law on the 
subject, directing the executive to place our com- 
merce and shipping upon it, as soon, or as fast as 
other nations encouraged it. To show the folly of 
such a principle, and its absolute injustice and im- 
prudence both, let us follow its first steps into fact 
and practice. We will take it up first in relation to 
a reciprocity in port charges and tonnage duties. 
The large commercial nations, our rivals, such as 
England, France, Russia, Sweden, Portugal, Hol- 
land, Belgium, and others, paid no attention to our 
great principle, and rejected all offers to treat upon 
that basis, because they had a large active com- 
merce, and chose to keep it under their own con- 
trol, and such regulations from time to time, as 
their interests might require. The small states, 
however, such as Denmark, Hamburgh, Bremen, 
Prussia, Brazil, Tuscany, Rome, Greece, and the 
like contemptible governments, without any ship- 
ping worth speaking of, caught at the idea of reci- 
procity, and recognized in it a great principle. 
They, therefore, as soon as offered, made such trea- 
ties with us, and they were paraded by our wise- 
acres to Congress, duly ratified, and as duly puffed. 
These powers, having little tonnage and less trade, 
are greatly gainers by the treaty over us, with 
much tonnage and much trade. Our rival nations, 
finding things so, slip their tonnage under the flags 
of these contemptible powers, and send it here free 
of tonnage duty, whilst all our numerous ships en- 
tering their ports, have to pay these duties, which 



160 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

gives them all that advantage over us. We know 
how easy this is done by the custom-house leger- 
dermain of all ages and nations. We will exempli- 
fy this by a familiar case. A rich lord and a poor 
man live near each other. The poor man says to 
him, " My dear sir, you have wines, plate, servants, 
furniture, and stores of all sorts ; I have some 
things, too, such as splint-bottom chairs, pewter 
spoons, buckhorn-handled knives, and a good deal 
of delf and some hard cider. Now as we both see 
our friends occasionally, let us reciprocate ; when 
I see my neighbors, you must lend me your wines, 
servants, plate, costly linen, furniture, and viands, 
and when you see your noble friends, I will recip- 
rocate, and send you my things." This would be 
reciprocity with a vengeance ; yet the same sort as 
exists between us and Bremen, or Leghorn, and 
others. Bremen now is highly commercial, sends 
here hundreds of ships, and occupies a whole range 
of wharves on the North River in New- York. 
Hamburgh sweeps the Elbe, and sends out for 
Prussia, Hanover, Bohemia, Austria, and pretty 
much all the Baltic states. Leghorn trades for 
Italy and Greece, and Brazil and Buenos Ayres for 
England, as far as South America is concerned. 

These few cases show the operations of the great 
principle of reciprocity as far as tonnage duties go, 
and prove its short-sighted and impolitic effect 
upon us. The great principle is still sung in our 
legislative halls, and stands on our statute books in 
all the sacredness of a treaty ; an everlasting re- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 161 

cord of our weakness and want of thought, or the 
proper sort of knowledge. Our tariff, as lame as it 
is, speaks as to the duty on manufactures, but a 
party stands forth that would put them too on the 
great principle of reciprocity. Our commerce 
therefore needs, and loudly calls for, enactments in 
these respects that will protect our own tonnage 
and shipping interest, and stand it on a footing 
that will cherish — not sacrifice it. Sweep me 
from our national legislature such simple, empty- 
headed, visionary politicians, or demagogues, that 
from ignorance are daily overreached, and from par- 
ty drilling dare not do right when they are told it. 
It is equally short-sighted to make treaties guaran- 
teeing the advantage of the most'favored nation to 
any one, for we may have a strong motive of inter- 
est to offer advantages to some. Our commerce too 
has lost a very legitimate branch of trade; I do not 
mean the carrying, for all nations have a right to 
carry their own productions, but the trade to the 
ports of nations which they choose to call their 
colonies. The mother countries, particularly Eng- 
land, and France, and Holland, forbid our going to 
their colonies with any thing of their growth, or 
bringing away any thing for shipment to the mo- 
ther country of colonial growth. We, however, 
with all the thoughtless indifference imaginable to 
our own interests, allow those nations to carry our 
products to their colonies, and from one of our ports 
to another, without any let or hinderance. We should 
countervail all these things, correct these one-sided 

12 



162 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and partial operations, and be true to ourselves and 
our own commerce. We will not only lose much 
interest and advantage by this want of discrimina- 
tion and sharpness, but incur the contempt of all 
that witness it. Most of our injurious law r s and 
treaties are made, not from a love of free trade, as 
some pretend , but from absolute ignorance of the sub- 
jects, and a want of practical men in our councils. 
If we were true to our great commercial interests, 
w ? e would secure the carrying of our huge and 
voluminous bulk of agricultural and staple pro- 
ductions to all the countries that require them for 
use. They are valuable and important enough to 
enter into all treaties and commercial arrange- 
ments. Rather than lose them, or have them with- 
held, all nations would bear any commercial ar- 
rangement in regard to them, even if it led to some 
more charges or cost. England would let us into 
her colonial trade rather than forego the advan- 
tages of carrying our cotton from our country. We 
are too yielding, short-sighted, simple, ignorant, or 
not sufficiently practical to reap these harvests when 
in our way, and avail ourselves of the vantage ground 
the God of nature has stood us on. When a nation 
has raw materials valuable enough, staples bulky 
enough, agricultural productions important enough, 
and ships enough to affect all the business of the 
commercial world, and produce spasms or activity 
as furnished or withheld, thrift or prostration as fav- 
ored or not, she should avail herself of such vantage 
ground, such a leverage, to not only build up her 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 163 

shipping interest and commerce, but obtain through 
their operations all the benefits and concessions she 
may demand or need. When the fulcrum is fur- 
nished by Nature's God to this young Archimedes, it 
still fails to move the commercial world. Our com- 
merce, if we demanded it, might double with Eng- 
land around the great capes of South America 
and Africa, and sweep the bays of Bengal and 
Bombay, scour with her the West Indies, run with 
her through all her various colonies, and in every 
port, place, colony, or mother country, be a part of 
herself as to facilities secured by treaty. No na- 
tion could gainsay us, for we would be in possession 
of all seas. No nation could war upon us, for we 
would be full of resources and wealth. No nation 
could countervail us, for we would control all the 
productions necessary to her existence. We would 
stand on high and enviable ground, placed there by 
our own wisdom, that made use of natural advan- 
tages and resources too valuable to nations to be 
placed on any doubtful footing. This young Hercu- 
les, that strangled not the serpent in its early 
grasp, will fall like Laocoon in the foldings of its 
wrath. Our country has never used to the best 
advantage our commercial situation ; has not im- 
proved the talent given to us; but the rather buried 
it under party ignorance and prejudice. Let us 
now take hold in earnest of our commercial rela- 
tions, countervail where necessary, destroy all 
mock reciprocity, and show the world that we 
must be benefited exactly in proportion to our na- 



164 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

tural advantages, and the value of our productions 
and raw staples. It will cost us much negotiation, 
much bickering, and time, now to correct what 
worthless politicians have either done wrongly or 
left undone. It will cost us no war, however ; for 
we as customers, and our productions as raw ma- 
terials and provisions, are too valuable and dear to 
other nations to have them jeopardized by a war or 
non-intercourse. 



CHAPTER XX. 

RAW AND WROUGHT VALUES. 

The difference between raw and wrought 
values is strongly marked and felt in all the opera- 
tions of producing, fabricating, and trading. The 
raw thing or material is necessarily rough, coarse, 
and bulky, implies little value comparatively, and 
is generally prepared or produced by a new coun- 
try and a less refined people, and appertains to a 
rude state of the arts and a less skilful population. 
It makes up in its bulk to the carrier and the 
merchant what it lacks in value, and employs 
more tonnage and more agencies in the transporta- 
tion and disposition of it. New countries begin 
their productions with the raw material and crude 
provisions, which pass on for fabrications and con- 
sumptions to more skilful countries. The produc- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 165 

tions of a country indicate not only the state of the 
arts but of refinement ; and the makers of articles of 
fancy, elegance, and luxury, are necessarily cultiva- 
ted in their taste. The hands, the axe, hoe, plough, 
and sickle, produce provisions and staples ; a wood- 
fire blasts the metals ; but it requires the finest 
manipulations, the most delicate and complicated 
machinery, and some knowledge of mathematics, 
chemistry, and taste in designing, to create all the 
fine, elegant, and luxurious articles, such as apper- 
tain to the more advanced and refined state of soci- 
ety. The value of the raw material, and the same 
material when wrought, is as one to five on the 
average. We are content to be that crude people 
that roughly produce provisions and raw materials, 
that enjoy the raw value, and let our more refined 
neighbors reap the five-fold wrought price ; and we 
weigh ourselves down with roughness, and bulk, 
and uncouth shapes, whilst our more refined cus- 
tomers display the light, the elegant, and richly 
beautiful forms of the manufactured goods. Our 
politicians aspire not to taste, refinement, and the 
wealth that this five-fold value imparts, but leave 
us the clodhoppers of the farms, or the hewers 
of wood in the forests, or the trappers of fur in the 
mountains, or fishermen, to work along in a natu- 
rally rough way, without protection or farther in- 
ducement. One third part of the people who pro- 
duce a raw material, cotton, wool, iron, hemp, silk, 
tobacco, flax, or any other such things, can and do 
work them up, and impart to them by the opera- 



166 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

tion five values. In plain mathematics, one manu- 
facturer produces in value, or money, five times as 
much as the one engaged in raising the raw 
material. One Englishman, spinning up a given 
quantity of cotton, earns more than five slaves 
can in growing it in Louisiana. This is the 
high ratio that all manufacturing people have rode 
upon to the wealth and elegance that such nations 
display, and accounts for that wealth with which 
England astonishes and subsidizes the world ; for in 
vain may you look for it in her soil and agriculture, 
and her commerce was merely the medium through 
which this wealth flowed in and was realized. The 
commerce of a people, in these times of exclusive 
right, when each nation sets up to carry its own pro- 
ductions, must depend on what that people produce, 
and only disposes of it and what it commands from 
other countries. Commerce cannot, therefore, en- 
rich a people in the abstract, and can contribute to 
it only as the medium, agent, or go-between of a 
population and their productions, and the nations 
that want them and their trade. In vain, then, 
may our politicians allege that England was en- 
riched by her commerce instead of her manufac- 
tures, for the latter constituted the very basis and 
essence of that commerce, called it into existence, 
and through it realized, not only the value of her 
manufactures, but a profit on them beyond, in the 
nature of a tax upon those who consumed them. 
All the profits of commerce are incidental, and 
have reference to its basis and support. Like the 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 167 

light of a satellite, the profits of commerce are bor- 
rowed and reflected, not inherent as the centre 
sun of business, not creative as the producers 
are. 

All the nations of Europe count wealth either 
as accumulated capital, or as realized in the shape 
of improvements and luxuries, exactly in propor- 
tion as they have manufactories, and through them 
subsidized the world. They have accumulated 
wealth faster, when, like England, they connect 
an active commerce with them, to give to them 
rapid distribution, and increase the profits on them 
by a tax on their transportation. The ratio then 
becomes geometrical, for the basis, which is the 
goods manufactured, is very profitable, and the 
charges of the transportation and bartering of 
them through trade, an additional profit — both 
operations blending in happily together, and swell- 
ing the wealth of the country. It is almost discour- 
aging to see a population laboring at the produc- 
tion of the bulky, and rough, raw product — and 
some of them too unpleasant for free people to 
enter on or touch, and leading for that reason to 
the employment of slaves, the curse of any coun- 
try — whilst a less amount of laborers are using or 
working up these raw materials with a compara- 
tive ease to themselves, and deriving from them five 
times the profit that those do who produced them 
with so much pain. The rough, besweated south- 
erner, the savage backwoodsman, the reckless fish- 
erman, the clodhopping farmer, stand low in any 



168 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

scale of civilization and taste in comparison with 
the artists. It is no argument against the high 
profits of manufacturing that its operatives are 
often poor and distressed, for that is owing to the 
excess of competition in the capitalists that put 
them in motion, creating an overloaded market. 
The wealth derived is as great in the aggregate, 
and as sure to the coffers of the nation, but so di- 
vided that individuals derive nothing but a support 
after the capitalist receives his dividend. Eng- 
land has occasionally accumulated wealth as fast 
when the wages of the operatives were low as 
when they were high ; the wealth and profit in the 
aggregate were the same, but the distribution of it 
among the producers more unequal. England has, 
for instance, four hundred millions of money spin- 
ning cotton, and makes fifty millions of profit. If 
she makes that profit with one hundred thousand 
operatives, or with two hundred thousand, it is the 
same thing to the nation ; not, however, to the 
operatives individually, for their wages in the 
one case is double what it is in the other. If, 
however, she has too much labor, it would be 
better perhaps to employ two persons at half 
wages, than one at whole, if the half wages 
can support them. Half wages are better in 
all cases than idleness, because that leads to 
vice, disorder, and suffering. National accumu- 
lations stand occasionally on a different footing 
from the mass of individuals, where the capitalists, 
as we have said, being few, enjoy the profits, and 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 169 

the laborers being many divide the wages to death, 
and get a bare support ; still these profits and these 
capitalists are in and of the nation. The only 
thing that redeems the condition of the producers 
of the raw material and provisions from the rough- 
ness and low profits incident thereto, is the rough 
sort of independence that runs with it, in regard to 
the individuals themselves, but not in regard to the 
nation, its resources and defences. We may look 
through Europe and verify the fact, that all the 
rich nations are manufacturers. Often the richest 
nations are naturally the poorest as to soil and 
agricultural productions. When any of them are 
commercial — and most are that manufacture — it is 
because these very manufactures form the basis 
of their commerce, the latter being only incidental. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

NATIONS OF THE WORLD THEIR CONDITION, AND THE 

CAUSES. 

England. Let us in connection with this sub- 
ject run over the actual state or condition of each 
nation of Europe, and see at a glance the character 
and source of their wealth if rich, or the cause of 
their poverty if poor. England stands at the head 
of the list, both for wealth and manufactures. She 
lives in wealth and luxury, and has capital enough 
to buy the world, if offered for sale. In other words, 



170 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

she has as much money as all Europe besides. The 
question naturally arises, How did she acquire it 1 
Not by her agriculture, for the utmost that ever 
did was to feed and support her, and now does 
not do that much. Not by her fisheries, for they 
barely supply her with the luxuries and products of 
the ocean. Not by working gold, silver, and dia- 
mond mines, for she has none of them. It is the 
fruit of her labor, her manufacturing labor and 
skill, and the commerce that is based upon it. 
These have been called into existence by wise poli- 
cies and protections, and cherished up to the pres- 
ent point, when they are putting the whole world 
in requisition. These manufactories were aided by 
iron, coal, copper, and tin mines, which the same 
wise policy early uncovered, and turned in as in- 
valuable supports to these manufactories. When 
these things became started and developed, showing 
some surplus, the same wise policy saw in the in- 
sular situation of England great commercial facili- 
ties, and sprung an active commerce into existence, 
under navigation acts and Other inducements, in 
order to trade on and dispose of this surplus. She 
secured to it a monopoly of all these products of the 
manufactories and mines, and threw it into an eter- 
nal alliance and subservience to them. This com- 
merce carried forth to the new and the old world 
these artificial productions ; supplied all, created 
new markets when necessary; traded, bartered, 
gathered in the raw material these factories need- 
ed, or money, as the case might be; and returned 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 171 

fraught with wealth and the means of producing 
more wealth. Her situation, activity, free institu- 
tions, and intelligence, soon placed all the new 
continents in her power as markets; enabled her 
when it became advisable to conquer the Indies 
East and West, and create all of them, with their 
hundred million inhabitants, into consumers and 
producers of wealth to her. The thing became 
geometrical as it rolled on ; every new fulcrum 
supported a new and mighty leverage of power that 
moved a new world, and turned it over to her use 
and behoof. The capital already accumulated 
loaned itself to new conquests in order to gain new 
markets, or created new and mightier navies to 
secure all her wide conquests and dominions. All 
of this mighty fabric of English greatness and 
wealth owes its existence to her manufactories, 
including her mines, and to the shipping, commerce, 
trade, and navy that grew out of them, and de- 
pended on them for their support and extension, as 
well as their origin. 

We might stop at England, for she furnishes an 
example strong enough to melt a mountain in the 
way of conviction, of the unlimited profits and 
wealth growing out of manufacturing ; especially 
where a commerce has sprung up based upon it 
and subservient to it, and a government true to its 
protection and extension. Pause for a moment 
and compare England and our country — how wide 
the difference in their profits and progress ! With 
not more, on the average, than double our popula- 



172 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

tion, she has, since the revolution that brought us 
into existence, made and realized not less on every 
estimate than twenty times as much capital to the 
head as we have. England, her writers say, has 
a clear income in money, after supplying herself 
every year, of two hundred millions to add to her 
capital ; whereas we have not one cent, and often 
fall in debt and behind, after supplying and buying 
what we ought to make at home. We are now in 
debt not less than three hundred million of dollars 
to England for her capital borrowed and lost, and 
her goods bought for consumption at the time so 
many of our people were idle and might have made 
them. England, on the contrary, has the above in- 
come and owes not one cent ; for her national debt 
is owed to herself, and in this sense no debt at all. 
All the world, except France and Holland, owes 
England; she, nothing. The difference between a 
nation that has an income, and one with not only 
no income, but a deficiency and debt instead, is as 
wide as heaven and earth ; indeed, you cannot com- 
pare them, for there are no data, no ground to stand 
on ; as well might we compare nothing to some- 
thing, or subtract nought from millions — there is no 
result. The above reasoning applies to the capital 
or income of a people, nationally speaking ; not to 
individuals, for they must live and support them- 
selves in either case, and it is the accumulation of 
capital, not bread, that is concerned. A nation that 
outlays one dollar for a raw material and makes it 
worth five by bestowing labor on it, must realize 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 173 

four dollars by the operation ; no matter how you 
divide that four dollars between her labor, capital, 
merchant, or shipping, it is still made and realized. 
If instead of paying the one dollar for the raw ma- 
terial, she made or produced that too, the whole 
five then is a creation, a profit, a realization. Here 
stands this country of ours with labor enough, and 
much of it idle, to not only produce the raw mate- 
rial that she now does, but to give it the wrought 
value that counts England so much, and merchants 
and shipping enough, too, to distribute it all where it 
might be wanted. If we were to manufacture two 
hundred million dollars worth of goods annually from 
our own raw material, in addition to that unbounded 
raw product, and sell them abroad, superadding to 
them the profits of transportation and commerce, we 
would be the richest people on earth. Nothing 
could then contain our wealth, number our luxu- 
ries, or equal our advances in power and influence. 
Could all this be realized ? It is possible, but very 
improbable, and hardly desirable. It would enrich 
us fast enough for our comfort and safety, to move 
up to our home consumption only, and secure that 
which is justly ours by the proper laws. 

We have slaves enough to produce all the raw 
staples they now do, and manufacture them also. 
If then it degrades free people, as some pretend, to 
manufacture — demoralizes and attenuates them, 
or renders them sickly — since slavery is really fas- 
tened upon us by force of adamantine circumstan- 
ces, and must be endured, could it not be made to 



174 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

produce all this 1 Why not try it 1 Why not 
make the mighty effort % It would cost no more 
sacrifice of liberty, or humanity, than it now does. 
It would then be in its proper sphere, and the forced 
and imprisoned labor that it must be. All compar- 
isons, then, between England and this country, 
either fail or end to our disadvantage, both as to 
policy and productiveness. We are truly and lite- 
rally now slaves to England, her hewers of wood 
and drawers of water, and contribute to her exalt- 
ation and emolument in every way. We toil and 
sweat, trudge through mud and mire, sunshine and 
rain, a burning, deadly climate, and a frozen zone, 
all to produce invaluable raw materials for Eng- 
land to work up and reap a harvest from. Lest all 
this might not be enough, we scandalize and dis- 
grace ourselves and posterity, with the foul blot of 
slavery reaching to millions, in order to insure it. 
See the American capitalist and master, rough and 
exposed, worried and fretting, weighed down by 
the vast bulk of his own productions, and then real- 
izing but a small minimum profit as an individual, 
and nothing at all nationally speaking, whilst Eng- 
land rolls in wealth ! Let us have our work-shops 
abroad, said the worst politician that ever a nation 
was cursed with. We have them abroad, by his 
influence mainly, and our masters are there too ; 
for we have been all the time dependent on them 
for our necessaries. As well might we say, let our 
capital be abroad, let our liberty, our independence, 
be in foreign keeping. Had he lived to the age of 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 175 

a patriarch, under full penitence, he could not have 
atoned for all the mischief he entailed on this na- 
tion, and the disappointment the friends of liberty 
the world over felt, and are destined to feel, from 
his visionary acts and policies. 

France. France is a rich, cultivated, comfort- 
able, and luxurious country, and rendered so by 
her manufactures. She had not the commercial 
advantages of England, nor her free institutions, 
when she most needed them to start even with her 
rival. France found a vast resource in her home 
market, which she leaned on for the first ages of 
her manufactures. She had also much better 
agricultural products and in more abundance than 
England. France had her wine, and oil, and silks, 
as well as her corn, and meats, and forests, and 
fisheries, to make valuable interchanges at home. 
Her provinces were to one another pretty much as 
foreign countries are to each other, and carried on 
a vast trade within her own bosom. She had a 
valuable raw material in silk, as well as wool, 
plaster of Paris, iron, and many others. If her first 
efforts, like England, had built harbors, established 
commerce, uncovered iron and coal, and taken hold 
of the foreign markets and controlled their supplies, 
she w T ould have been as rich as England, and shared 
the world with her. She lacked then the free in- 
stitutions, the principles of justice, the intelligence, 
and corresponding enterprise, necessary to such a 
rivalry. She was so many ages building up free 
and unshackled institutions, and gaining the spirit, 



176 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and intelligence, and ambition of commerce and 
capital, that England had the start of her too far 
to be overtaken or even imitated. The supplying 
of the home market and interchanges in France 
has made her comfortable, luxurious, and indepen- 
dent ; and the surplus goods and productions that 
she exports, though small compared to England, 
are making her rich ; for she has an income, over 
and above supplying herself, of fifty million dollars 
annually. In this latter respect she is better off 
than we are, who have no income, as we showed, 
after meeting our own wants. England, by esti- 
mate, has, and can command in money capital, one 
hundred times as much as France, in any year, or 
at any time. Capital is so meagre and scarce in 
France, that no great objects can be accomplished 
without aid from England ; no stock companies, no 
extensive loans ; all is on a small scale, cautious, 
and fearful. She either wants capital vastly, or 
spirit, ambition, and enlightened policy, to wield it. 
England never slumbered when her interests could 
be benefited or extended ; in peace, she was wide 
awake ; in war, she never forgot her best profits, 
nor her best markets. Bonaparte was absorbed 
in his own ambition, and carried France and all 
her resources into that channel with him. He 
stimulated nothing but empty glory ; he developed 
nothing but munitions of w 7 ar ; he built no roads, 
and made no intercommunications, but such as led 
to conquest and battle ; he left no monuments but 
the Place Vendome,or the Elephant Fountain, both 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 177 

more in memento of his folly than his patriotism ; 
for his great road over the Simplon is the property 
of Sardinia. He left the corn and wine districts 
unconnected, which of all others need interchanges 
the most : he left the coal and iron undeveloped, 
the only sure basis for manufactures, national 
wealth, and independence ; and manufactures, in 
the turmoil of war, either suffered stagnation or 
abandonment. France, however, is a happy coun- 
try, and wants nothing from foreign lands but a few 
raw materials and tropical luxuries. Her own bo- 
som is so broad and deep that thousands of inter- 
ests lie nestled there, and give to her great variety 
in her own productions and interior commerce. 

Holland. Holland now reposes upon her with- 
ered laurels as to capital and manufactures ; is rich 
from the past, and snug in her economies, finished 
comforts, and works. She manufactures not only 
up to her own supply, but has a large surplus for 
her millions of subjects in her Asiatic islands and 
the Indies. Although her income is small and her 
surplus capital annually not large, with her finish- 
ed economy she is all the time growing rich. Like 
England she pushed out her commerce under free 
institutions and an intelligent spirit, not only to 
trade in and support her manufactures, but to grasp 
the riches of the Indies. She at one time was not 
only the rival of England, but threatened to extin- 
guish her, and it became a struggle of life and 
death between them ; the markets of the world 
were the prize for which they fought — a very ex- 

13 



178 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

istence the object. England prevailed ; Holland 
sunk back into a second rate power, and became 
content in following England and picking up the 
scattered crumbs of wealth and commerce that she 
left. Her situation has brought her much wealth 
from Germany. The Rhine, the sea, her economy, 
her Indian productions, her capital, but above all, 
her manufactories, made and keep her rich. She 
caught the mantle of manufactures as the Flemish 
and Belgians dropped it, and improved upon them. 
Flanders, failing to have any government until 
lately, prostrated her pretensions, and her skill and 
artists took refuge in Holland and flourished. Hol- 
land has given to the world a pleasing and useful 
lesson, not only in economy, but that persevering 
industry that knew no relaxation, that admitted of 
no idleness or unproductive capital ; the very sea 
yields to her labors, the very winds are made to 
work. 

Sweden, etc. Sweden has a vast resource in 
her iron. It procures for her an income, and ena- 
bles her to purchase what raw materials she needs, 
and her home market is supplied by her own indus- 
try. She has not income enough to enrich herself, 
but sufficient for her comfort and even luxury. 
Denmark, Prussia, Austria, Hanover, Bavaria, have 
no income beyond what supplies their wants. They 
have, however, secured to their people the home 
market, and are snug and comfortable, but rather 
poor nations. They stand on the same footing of 
this country, without any surplus income. They 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 179 

sell enough, however, of provisions and some raw 
materials to purchase all they want, and without 
advancing in the accumulation of capital, or retro- 
gading in the arts, are happy and contented. The 
Zollvarien, or Customs' Union, will stand Germany 
on a better footing, and enrich her. 

Russia. Russia scarcely sells enough of her 
own productions to supply herself with the many 
necessaries and luxuries that she needs and does 
not make. Hence many parts of her vast empire 
are laboring under privations, and many of her 
subjects semi-barbarous, because they have not 
wherewith to gratify a taste for improvements and 
the elegances of life. The emperor has been too 
much taken up with his own ambition, and the un- 
wieldy and disjointed parts of his heterogeneous 
dominion, to be able to develope the arts and estab- 
lish manufactures, even up to the home supply. 
His powers of combination cannot embrace such 
an unbounded space. No one plan or policy can 
be applied to such widely different climates, inter- 
ests, and tongues. Before any general system, no 
matter how well matured, can cover so many lati- 
tudes, it evaporates and is lost. The Russ knows 
not the feelings and wants of the Cossack, nor the 
Tartar of the Calmuck, nor the Fin of the Pole, 
nor the Courlander of the Siberian ; all must be a 
random shot, a work of chance, that developes any 
resource, or that hits any interest, in such a varied, 
such a wide-spread region. Such a giant must be 
stimulated a limb at a time, and dressed up with 



180 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

the proper appliances in the same way. Were in- 
tercommunications established between her dis- 
jointed parts, and the proper developments made, 
an extensive home trade and barter would spring 
up between the parts that produce so differently, 
and have such different habits and wants. The 
vassals and serfs might, under her absolute power, 
be brought in and made into manufacturers, that 
would not only supply themselves, but have much 
surplus. The hemp, corn, and iron, enable her to 
buy much from abroad, and would enrich her, if 
she made her own supplies and enjoyed this as an 
income. 

Small Powers. The small powers of Europe, 
such as Hamburgh, Bremen, Frankfort, Ratisbon, 
Saxony. Switzerland, are rich from long establish- 
ed manufactures and commerce. They have con- 
fined territories, are without agricultural products, 
and have found it to their interest to lean on and 
give all possible protection to those branches. The 
Hanseatic portion have from times immemorial been 
commercial. That neutral character and exemp- 
tion from war, aided by their free institutions that 
were early conceded to them, redounded to their 
emolument, and insured them wealth and consider- 
ation. In the turbulent times of Europe, glimpses 
of Asiatic luxuries were caught by the European 
savages, as they then were ; and the wish to have 
them became so strong that a sacred route, thread- 
ing these towns, was allowed to them to enter 
through, without the risk of the wars and rapine 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 181 

that then seized upon all the avenues of trade and 
commerce. Under these immunities, those towns 
accumulated and saved capital enough to give them 
influence and some control in the affairs of the Ger- 
manic body. That capital has swelled by savings, 
until, in the hands of the Rothschilds and other 
capitalists, it subserves many great purposes in 
Europe. The citizens of these free towns were all 
the time realizing the wrought values, whilst the 
boorish Germans around them were hardly enjoy- 
ing the raw. The surpluses of these towns, doubled 
by trade and commerce, though small, would not 
fail in five or six centuries to enrich such mere 
handfuls of population. Switzerland, by having 
no idle persons, without any agricultural products 
beyond their own brown bread, has grown comfort- 
able and almost luxurious. Without communica- 
tions by navigation or easy routes with Europe, she 
gave a lightness and elegance to her labor in 
the shape of fine and tasteful articles, that enabled 
them to bear even mountain transportation, and 
find and reach a consuming market. Her small 
annual supplies, with her deep and available econ- 
omy, has almost enriched her. She is independent, 
and supplies all her own wants in addition. 

Italian States. The Italian States cover their 
own ground and wants, and have among themselves 
markets and interchanges enough to insure the 
comfort and the luxury, if not the wealth, of all. 
They have a fine climate, and many valuable pro- 
ductions, which find a market, and give the means 



182 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

of some accumulation, particularly in the northern 
parts of the peninsula. The fine arts have done 
much for them, and given them income and curren- 
cy, as well as fame and refinement. The southern 
parts of Italy, Rome and Naples, and we may in- 
clude the Grecian States, are so steeped in supersti- 
tion and indolence, that they have no income, and 
no ability to purchase from abroad. They have, 
therefore, to live in a hand-and-mouth meagre way 
within their own little means, consuming but little 
in goods, and less in provisions and raw materials. 
Taste and refinement have been so long shedding 
their influences upon those districts, that in their 
very poverty and rags they manifest a people 
above their situation, abused in politics, and they 
in turn abusing and misusing their fine country and 
its natural advantages. 

Spain. Spain presents a fine country, full of 
resources and every sort of advantages, worn down 
to a mere skeleton by the operation of the worst, 
most versatile, and despotic government that has 
ever afflicted Europe. No fixed policy, except the 
impoverishing one of buying abroad to supply want, 
has ever marked her course. She is now without 
income, or any commerce or manufactures that can 
create one ; and hobbles on, half supplied by her 
own miserable and unprotected industry. She 
lives, in the midst of great natural resources, in 
poverty ; and, when all the world is advancing in 
wealth and comfort, she is either stationary, or, even 
worse, foiling back into almost a savage state. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 183 

Her lead, her silk, oil, fruit, wine, and mineral pro- 
ductions, as well as all her agriculture, are so much 
neglected that they give her but little means to 
supply the thousand wants that she does not meet 
at home, and she is left in a state of worse than 
privation. She furnishes a striking example of 
how poor a country attempting to buy all abroad 
becomes, and how helpless from habit and neglect. 
Her rich colonies, that poured into her bosom the 
precious metals, have set up for themselves, and 
these treasures have passed into other and more 
efficient hands. Portugal retains some fragments 
of her old trade, and under the patronage and dic- 
tation of England, contributes much to the wealth 
of her protector. She has almost no manufac- 
tures ; her commerce carried on in foreign bot- 
toms, and her valuable wines, fruit, salt and min- 
erals, under the control of England. She is poor 
and without income, and has to limit her wants to 
the scantiness of her means, and the unavailing or 
unproductive nature of her labor. 

Spanish Americas. The Spanish Americas lean 
on the mines that lie in their bosom, and buy their 
necessaries and luxuries with their products, as far 
as they go, without any effort at manufactures or 
aim to supply their wants at home. They buy up 
to their means, and do without the rest. They 
have inherited and retained all the indolence of the 
mother country, and enough of her pride to render 
them totally inefficient. They will bury, or rather 
keep buried, the talent nature gave them, and ex- 



184 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

hibit to the world a people trying to be free, with- 
out the capacity to insure it, and owning a country 
abounding in all the productions dear to man, as 
well as underlaid with all the valuable resources, 
without industry, skill, or intelligence, necessary to 
develope them. 

Brazil and Cuba. Brazil and Cuba lean upon 
slavery, and have most valuable staples through 
their operations. They have rich and available 
productions, mostly tropical luxuries, that all Eu- 
rope needs and consumes, and fails not to go after 
and secure. These regions eschew commerce, and 
lose all the profits that are incident to trade. They 
merely sell at their own ports these valuable sta- 
ples, at such price as foreigners choose or can af- 
ford to give or pay for them. The great incomes 
they enjoy are not available as money accumu- 
lated, but all go into more slaves, with a view to 
an increased product. Such an investment may 
be regarded as an evil, and one that will sink them 
still deeper into disgrace and embarrassment, when 
time shall have pronounced upon it, When the 
bubble bursts, they will find themselves like Hayti, 
without any wealth or improvements, and in place 
of them a worthless, degraded, savage population ; 
a population that ceases to produce, not only the 
staples, but the comforts of life, as soon as the whip 
of the master is lifted from them. Hayti and the 
British islands, and Caraccas or Laguira, show, 
and will prove, that slaves, when let free, are to- 
tally unavailable; have not industry enough to 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 185 

make themselves decent, much less to cultivate the 
staples; and return to the savage state too rapidly 
for any policy to arrest them, and direct them into 
the proper channels. Too ignorant to have any 
inherent impulses that will either form a good gov- 
ernment, or originate and obey any wise policy. 
When the weight of ownership is lifted from such 
an arch, it crumbles to pieces, and the whole in- 
terest falls to the ground. When the stimulus of 
the whip is withdrawn, there remains nothing to 
supply its place. 

Asia. It is scarcely worth while to travel into 
Asia or Egypt. Their habits are peculiar, and 
their wants but few. They run upon extremes in 
their consumption. The few lords and governors 
are luxurious; the millions of subjects and slaves 
want the least possible, both in provisions and 
clothing. Despotism and rapacity preclude all 
regular culture or operations based upon a regular 
investment or commerce. What little capital they 
possess they hide and bury, to preserve from rapa- 
city ; and what enjoyments they have are by 
stealth. Egypt knows but one big slave-owner, 
one master, who cultivates cotton as a staple, and 
sells it on his own account, for a lordly income. 
There is no hope for people steeped both in igno- 
rance, slavery, and superstition, especially when 
you superadd indolence and a total destitution of 
pride and ambition. There are no guarantees there 
for either persons or property, and nothing worthy 
of any people can hope to succeed or be attempted. 



186 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

Hindosta7i. When we push over further into 
Asia and reach Hindostan and the Scinde, all is 
quiet under the leaden and steady purposes of 
England, and bend to her will. The country has 
a vast population and great resources, but without 
factitious wants, or with but little ability to con- 
sume ; none where things have to be purchased. 
England deserves great credit for staying the hand 
of rapacity, petty discords, and exterminating wars, 
that swept through that land like a tornado, and 
threatened all property and all persons. She found 
the people poor, without much capital, and with 
few wants ; and though she has hushed the strife, 
it is a dead and listless calm. So low have those 
people sunk in the scale of degradation, that no- 
thing can raise them ; so steeped are they in indo- 
lence and superstition, that nothing can stimulate 
them ; so few are their wants, that nothing can 
induce consumption ; so ignorant, that no light can 
illuminate such darkness. They oppose no oppo- 
sition to English measures, yet aid nothing in ef- 
fectuating them. All that political economy that 
would premise industry and improvements, and 
base itself upon the natural or artificial resources 
of the country must fail, for there is no wisdom to 
see it, no ambition to excite, nor energy to effectu- 
ate any thing available, or produce any result that 
would go to ameliorate that people or that country. 
They however make up in the millions of persons 
for the smallness of their wants, for their total in- 
efficiency, and in that way does England find some 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 187 

resource in them as subjects. England has not 
acted with her usual foresight in her govern- 
ment of, and policy towards, that people. Had 
she, by force if necessary, destroyed the fixed- 
ness of her casts, wrapped her in European cos- 
tumes, created new wants in her consumptions, 
stimulated her pride and ambition, and placed this 
huge multitude on the high road to civilization and 
improvement, all that is productive, and industri- 
ous, and enriching, would have followed as a mat- 
ter of course. England would then have insured 
to herself a leverage that would have moved both 
the old world and the new. All the tropical luxu- 
ries, all the great raw staples would have teemed 
forth and filled the demands of England up to any 
increased point, and correspondingly have con- 
sumed of English manufactures, until her mar- 
kets would have been quadrupled. The military 
chieftains that have issued forth from England 
and governed Hindostan for the last fifty years, 
have regarded the diamonds and rupees, and their 
own personal emolument, rather than the para- 
mount good of England. They thought, when they 
gained territory, it was enough, without looking to 
the productions, resources, and consumptions of that 
territory. They thought that when they counted 
millions of subjects it was all-sufficient. They re- 
ceived the vast frame exhausted and degraded, and 
applied no remedies to resuscitate and exalt it. 
They were willing to stand by and see the cross 
trampled on ; Juggernaut ride over the land, and 



188 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY". 

funeral pyres inwrap in their flames the innocent 
victims, provided they got honors, wealth, and 
votes of thanks in the British Parliament. The 
Hindoos, accustomed to rapine and plunder, await- 
ed and expected it from their English conquerors ; 
and instead of hailing the forbearance from these 
scenes as the foundation of a new and better state 
of things, and as guarantees of security, rather had 
a contempt for any conqueror that had not the pol- 
icy to depredate, the will to force and appropriate 
every thing. It lulled them, instead of stimulating 
them to wealth and productiveness. Old treaties 
or arrangements go to prove that the rajahs and 
little kings purchased with sacks of rupees, dia- 
monds, and rubies, the right to retain their religion 
in its horrid features, and to continue their rapa- 
city upon their subjects in many cases. England 
cuts not off the thousand heads of this Hydra of su- 
perstition, but lets them hiss and poison still the 
very fountains of human industry and availability. 
Instead of awakening confidence, by direct and im- 
mediate protection, she left the population still sub- 
ject, in many districts, to their own lawless and ra- 
pacious rajahs and kings. England did in this way, 
and through such measures, what she dared not do 
herself in any direct way. She saw the people so 
poor that no system of taxation based upon Euro- 
pean justice and humanity could force out of them 
large sums of money, and intervened the native 
governors to do the dirty and despotic work. Now 
when the clouds are dispelled, and English author- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 189 

ity established beyond all hazard, why does she 
not new-model those people, and insure some 
change in their habits, customs, casts, and society, 
with a view to their amelioration and advance- 
ment ? When one-tenth part of the population of 
the globe is thrown by the God of nature and the 
chances of war under the control and guardianship 
of any power, a sacred duty devolves on that pow- 
er to do something for their improvement and hap- 
piness. 

China. China presents a case every way 
anomalous and peculiar. She has grown comfort- 
able and even wealthy, in the long run of her ex- 
istence, on the home trade principally ; aided, how- 
ever, within the last hundred years, by an export 
of tea and manufactures ; or rather a sale of them 
to Europeans in her own ports. She has bought 
nothing from abroad until lately, when the eternal 
embargo has been lifted in part, by British enter- 
prise and intrepidity. She stands ready now to 
trade with the world on terms that will benefit 
others more than herself. She knew not what 
European and American skill could accomplish, 
aided as it is by machinery, and could not imagine 
the cheapness with which they can supply her, at 
the expense of her own industry. A people so 
teeming with cheap labor as China, ought to buy 
nothing from abroad. Had she continued the sale 
of tea and toys in her own ports, for cash only, she 
would have had all the time a good income, which 
to a nation buying nothing soon counts wealth and 



190 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

accumulates capital. European and American 
skill will run her down, and produce still more of 
distress than her overloaded population already 
exhibits. She has been thousands of years in ac- 
cumulating her present scant capital; and unless 
she restricts her trade and resolves to buy nothing, 
she will soon lose it all ; because when a people 
are at liberty to buy foreign articles, and find them 
cheaper and better than their own, they will soon 
lay out the ready cash they may have on hand. 

The trade and commerce of the world are des- 
tined to be confined, in the nature of things, to the 
interchange of such raw materials and productions 
as cannot be raised or produced by any people at 
home. The time is coming, if not already at hand, 
when no article of manufacture will be purchased 
from abroad, in any civilized country. There will 
be labor and skill enough in all to produce each 
and every article, whether of necessity or luxury, 
and it will be their interest and duty both to do it. 
The improvements in machinery of the labor-sav- 
ing sort will be so perfect, that a very small por- 
tion of the population, and that of the weakly sort, 
will be able to manufacture every thing that people 
want. This will be done without abstracting too 
much labor from agriculture and the production of 
raw materials, or at all diminish or jeopardize those 
great interests. More skill, and labor-saving ma- 
chinery too, aided by chemistry, will be applied to 
the productions of the soil, and increase those in a 
degree little thought of yet. The great agents of 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 191 

steam, the gases, the atmosphere, galvanism, and 
concentrated chemical manures, will enable the 
parent earth to produce ten times as much food and 
support ten times as many people. Labor and 
skill and power are going to increase faster than 
the wants or consumptions of the earth. This will 
insure the idea advanced above, that each and 
every people will make all they want, especially 
of fabricated goods. This ultimate state that is 
fast approaching, will put to flight all the doctrines 
and operations based on that sort of political econ- 
omy that goes to make one nation subservient to 
another, or teaches how to make labor more pro- 
ductive and cheaper in relation to foreign markets 
and foreign supplies. But one tariff law or regu- 
lation will be known to the statute books, that of 
total and absolute exclusion of all and every arti- 
cle fabricated or produced, of which the nation in 
question can make or rear. Until that day ar- 
rives, the nations of the world will struggle to un- 
dersell and overreach each other ; and one portion, 
the active, the free, the skilful, will grow rich and 
absorb all the capital of the world ; and the igno- 
norant, the indolent, the badly governed, and the 
weak powers, will stand exhausted to such a de- 
gree, that at last, from very necessity, they will have 
to wake up and supply themselves. The two ex- 
tremes of rich and poor nations, or of equal powers 
in these respects, will all work to the same point, 
that of supplying themselves ; the one from policy, 
the other from necessity. In the rapid develop- 



192 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

ments now going on, the time is not very distant 
when all this will be verified. We have now 
tumbled in a hurried way through and among the 
nations of the world, and taken a rapid birdseye 
view of their situation and resources, and seen 
plainly enough that they are rich and comfortable 
and independent exactly in proportion to the ex- 
tent that they have cultivated manufactures, and 
their handmaid commerce. We have seen how 
necessary a good government, free institutions, en- 
lightened statesmen, sound and permanent policy, 
that go to develope resources, manufacture first 
up to the home consumption, and next for all the 
world that are foolish enough to receive and con- 
sume them, are to the wealth and prosperity of a 
people. We have seen how necessary an active 
and well-protected commerce is to give efficiency 
to the labor of a people, and secure their profits 
from it. We have seen the two extremes of capi- 
tal accumulated until the whole world is affected 
by it, and a nation purchasing abroad until com- 
pletely exhausted. The one that expends its in- 
come in buying its supplies will be, and must in 
the nature of things be poor. It has to stand up 
with its earnings, be they much or little, and hand 
them over to the one that is promptest in supplying 
her. It is surplus money that enriches, and if that 
be expended in buying goods or provisions instead 
of putting it by as made and realized, there will 
be no capital, and we may add no independence. 
Poverty is the eternal portion of such short-sighted 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 193 

nations. We will here stop to remark that, in ref- 
erence to capital, there are three distinct grades 
of nations. One, like England, eternally adding to 
her capital by the wise policy of buying nothing 
but raw materials or tropical luxuries, and selling 
millions of her goods, and who has got rich enough 
under it almost to buy the world. Another class, 
as the United States, has an income that would en- 
rich her, but, for the want of a wise policy, has to 
lay it out annually to buy the articles of necessity 
and luxury that she does not make, and will never 
accumulate capital, but be always snug and always 
poor. Another class, too low to excite any feeling 
but pity, that has no income to buy with, and is 
only half furnished at home. Spain comes under 
this, and not only does not accumulate capital, but 
is all the time deteriorating and going backward. 

There are, however, other modes of accumula- 
ting wealth (not capital). A nation even when 
she expends all her monied capital in purchasing 
supplies, is realizing something in the shape of im- 
provements. This is the result of labor exerted at 
home. The United States, for instance, have made 
canals, roads, steamboats, towns and cities, new 
farms, founded institutions, and a thousand things 
that are the result of labor, yet not in the shape of 
available capital or actual accumulations of money. 
The very interchanges of labor effect much of this 
sort of realization, for houses are built by the ex- 
change of labor between the different mechanics 
concerned, as masons, carpenters, lumbermen, paint- 

14 



194 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

ers, smiths, and sometimes the farmer. Roads, 
canals, bridges, and such improvements, are the 
work of joint labor, or stock companies. Books 
are printed, clothes made, tools, and many perma- 
nent fixings got up by a mutual operation of me- 
chanics and farmers. Were it not for this kind of 
realization, things in such a country could not be 
kept up. It is meeting the natural wear and tear 
of time, and making and constructing such things 
as a natural increase of population requires for its 
accommodation. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



POOR LAWS. 



The poor laws are a subject of deep interest to 
political economists. All writers now are agreed, 
and experience proves the fact, that poor rates cre- 
ate pauperism — that this eating moth is fed by 
these laws, and knows no limit but the fund set 
apart for its support. I have showed, in preceding 
chapters, that even in England the poor have been 
hatched into existence by the poor laws and poor 
rates. These rates are the boxes prepared, and 
the swallows are sure to fill and occupy them 
to the last hole. The moment that portion of 
mankind naturally worthless, indolent, low spirit- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 195 

ed, and inefficient, find that they can live without 
labor, they will do it. The moment an individual 
is base and mean enough to beg, or avail himself of 
public charity, unless in the shape of a hospital, he 
is totally worthless, and sunk beyond all remedy. 
There is no foundation in his case left upon which 
to build him up, no pride, no self-esteem, no ambi- 
tion — in short, the person is not a man, but sunk to 
the level of the brute ; not a biting, or venomous 
brute, but a mere eating brute. Humanity aside, 
it would be to the interest of society to kill off all 
such drones, get rid of such excrescences, and cast 
off such burthens. No religion, no Howard, no 
helping hand, can raise them one single step in 
the scale of value and availability. The worst is, 
that such of that class and calibre as have any 
property by accident, or by occasionally working, 
instead of taking care of it, forthwith spend it and 
frolic on it until gone, knowing that they can lean 
on the public charity and find a certainty of sup- 
port. All providence, all inducement to industry, 
and virtue, and economy, are lost and of no avail 
in such cases, and with such people. The certain- 
ty of getting a tolerable support from the public 
destroys all exertion, all providence. Dissipation, 
and particularly drink, has brought hosts of such 
people to the poor-houses. Had life and existence 
depended on their working and saving, they would, 
under these last and most operative stimulants have 
done it ; but as they have the guarantee of a cer- 



196 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

tainty of support in the poor rates, they spin not, 
toil not. 

It is a very great and important point, therefore, 
in political economy, to know what remedy to ap- 
ply to this ulcer, this eating cancer of society. 
There is but one possible remedy ; that is, leave 
all healthy able-bodied persons to their own exer- 
tions, at all hazards. Seeing no provision ahead, 
all mankind will make an exertion, all will get 
along, and a great deal better than they do now. 
Better, if it comes to the worst, let a few perish 
in the streets, than have one-twentieth part of man- 
kind degraded, rendered worthless, and what is 
worse, eating the substance of the industrious and 
valuable portion of the community. Every coun- 
try could get over the loss of one-twentieth part of 
its population if an earthquake swept them off, 
and would soon recover from it ; but to have one- 
twentieth not only lost, but fastened upon it as an 
eternal eating moth, is infinitely worse. It is not 
only that portion that is lost but as much more, 
because it eats its own bulk into the remaining 
portion of the population. I will venture an asser- 
tion that even England would have had no pau- 
pers worth talking about, if she had not thus created 
them by her own poor-rates. All her population 
now, without poor-rates, would manifest some pro- 
vidence and industry ; and the thousands of men, 
women, and children, who spend all their money, 
their character and reputation at the gin-shops, 
would have had no existence scarcely. What 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 197 

a degrading and lamentable idea, yet true, that 
eight millions of pounds have in one year been 
raised in England for the poor, which, if taken 
backwards and forwards, amounts to the damning 
fact, that that much is taxed on the industry and 
substance of England, to support gin-shops, gam- 
bling establishments, and brothels! This sort of 
dissipation led to it, and created the necessity for 
it. It behooves every young country, particularly 
the United States, after seeing the effect of this 
system, and the mathematical certainty with which 
it fills its lists, to pause and take the bull by the 
horns. Our political economists ought to show this 
thing in its true colors, and our politicians ought 
immediately, in all the states, to repeal the poor- 
laws, and put a stop for ever to the growing eviL 
Why put our shoulders to burthens that have al- 
most weighed down England, an older and much 
richer country 1 We are acting now with our eyes 
open ; for all writers, all statesmen, and every en- 
lightened citizen, see and admit the ruinous ten. 
dency of these poor-laws and poor-rates. Let us 
have some well-regulated infirmaries only for the 
sick and disabled, and throw upon his or her own 
resources every healthy person. There is no dan- 
ger of any meritorious person suffering, or dying for 
want, in this plentiful country. If some die from 
dissipation and drunkenness, the community is well 
rid of them, particularly after habits become con- 
firmed. Religion and a false humanity have con- 
spired in keeping up the poor-laws, and have de- 



198 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

feated in it their very purpose, that of saving man- 
kind, for they have made thousands worthless by 
the very operation. There is nothing like young 
countries starting right in these respects, because it 
is hard to get rid of any system after it becomes 
fastened on them and a part of their annual ar- 
rangements. I fear in this country demagogism 
has much to do with the poor-laws and rates. 
The poor in some of the states have votes, and their 
cracked voice is heard in the elections directly. 
When this is not the case, there is an indirect in- 
fluence exerted, because the office-holders like to 
levy and disburse the large funds raised for the 
poor ; it gives them consequence and patronage, as 
well as emolument. The poor-lists are swelled by 
such unworthy feelings, and the danger is that the 
system will be fastened upon us. The poor-rates 
will increase faster in this country than in Eng- 
land for the above reasons; all this interest and all 
this machinery contributing to it. These same 
demagogical feelings in regard to the poor, build 
for them palaces, and provide so well for them, 
that it positively operates as a reward for vagran- 
cy, a bounty to laziness and vice. The poor live 
better, are clad better, kept warmer, more pam- 
pered, petted, and thought of, than the industrious 
poor who support themselves. You pass Phila- 
delphia and Now- York, and turn aside to examine 
some large buildings, looking like palaces or some 
great national institutions, and find yourself in the 
midst of three or four thousand gay, roystering, 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 199 

laughing, lounging, well-dressed rascals, who seem 
not to know, or to forget, that there is care on the 
face of the earth. You tax your imagination to 
conjecture for what great purpose or for what 
great merit they are cherished ; and what is your 
surprise, when told that they have not fbught for 
their country, not devoted themselves to religion, 
nor are gathered together to work some factory, 
and produce wealth — that they are paupers ! You 
hear a big bell ring soon, and go in with the crowd 
to a feast, a long table set out with viands, better 
than a farmer, after all his industry, has to feast 
upon. Your a ears are stunned with reproaches and 
complaints against the beef, the white bread, and 
all the laughing potatoes and vegetables that are 
loading the table, yet not satisfactory to these lazy 
lords. You inquire what Stephen Girard has built 
this house and spread all this table, by a donation 
of millions of money — for the whole cost millions — 
and are still more surprised when told that all 
these millions are raised by taxes upon the indus- 
try and substance of the land, to support these 
worthless and pampered people. You turn away, 
asking yourself the question, What claims can 
these people have on the industry of the country ? 
If they have any, all others may have the same, 
and where is the thing to end ? You say this sort 
of bounty to laziness is sure to produce all possible 
effect. 



200 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

SLAVERY. 

Slavery, as it now exists in the United States 



is calculated to exert a great influence upon our 
policy and future prosperity. I am not going to 
discuss the horrors of slavery, its moral turpi- 
tude, nor whether it is right or not. On all these 
points there can be but one opinion, if the thing 
had to be gone over again. I merely take it as it 
exists, as it stands marked and fastened upon us, 
and intend to show the bearing it has upon our la- 
bor, markets, and productions. It is a subject for 
the inquiry of our political economists, before they 
adopt any great measures intended to affect our 
labor, productions, and resources. A new and pe- 
culiar sort of labor is through slavery thrown into 
the United States, that is hard to calculate, and of 
which the effects are difficult to estimate. Three 
millions of people or laborers, whose wages are 
what they eat and wear only, working under other 
stimulants than their interests, and showing a 
steadiness and unchangeableness unknown to labor 
generally, cannot fail to produce such results as 
could not be appreciated by any rules of a Smith. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 201 

These laborers insure and perpetuate themselves, 
and are guaranteed to the country and their imme- 
diate owners by the most sacred and fundamental 
laws of the nation. No free labor can compete 
with them, for free labor must have wages that 
will bear the irregularities incident to all labor, 
such as occasional relaxation, illness, whims, 
changes, and dissipations. The free laborers are 
in families, and useless mouths are to be fed, 
houses, rents, furniture, taxes, doctors' bills, all 
amounting to some style and a considerable 
amount, have to be sustained. The slaves live 
without beds or houses worth so calling, or family 
cares, or luxuries, or parade, or show ; have no re- 
laxations, or whims, or frolics, or dissipations ; in- 
stead of sun to sun in their hours, are worked 
from daylight till nine o'clock at night. Where the 
free man or laborer would require one hundred 
dollars a year for food and clothing alone, the slave 
can be supported for twenty dollars a year, and 
often is. This makes the wages of the one forty 
cents a day, of the other six cents only. I prove 
this by the facts of the case. The average wages 
or price of labor in the United States is forty cents 
a day ; in England, two shillings, and on the con- 
tinent of Europe is about twenty-five cents. As 
far as minute inquiries go, the above rates are cor- 
rect. A slave consumes in meat two hundred 
pounds of bacon or pork, costing, in Kentucky, 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, and 
Western Virginia, $8 ; thirteen bushels of Indian 



202 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

corn, costing $2 : this makes up his food. Now for 
salt and medicines add $1, and it runs thus: a 
year's food is $11. Their clothing is of cottons — 
fifteen yards Lowell, $1 50 ; ten yards linsey, $4 ; 
one blanket, $2 ; one pair of shoes, $1 — making 
$7 50. Now this sum of $18 50, say $20, divided 
among the working days, is six cents. This is not 
fancy, but every day's practice. So the wages of a 
slave is one-sixth part of the wages of free labor- 
ers. If slave labor, therefore, was organized to the 
best advantage, no free labor could stand against 
it. I have shown before how well fitted slaves 
are for manufactories, and how confidential and 
trusty. 

The staples produced in this country by slaves, 

say cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, and hemp, that 

would have had no existence without them, for the 

last fifty years, have averaged fifty million dollars 

a year, which, in the fifty years, amounts to the 

enormous sum of twenty-five hundred millions. 

This sum has been realized, and constituted nearly 

the whole of our ability with which to purchase 

supplies abroad. Foreign nations, England more 

than all the others, have got, enjoyed, and realized, 

in the shape of capital, this twenty-five hundred 

million dollars, and we have consumed it, and not 

a vestige of it left behind. Had we not possessed 

this resource, we would have been infinitely better 

off; and, instead of three millions of slaves being 

fastened upon us, we would have had free people 

in their place, not growing these staples, but sup- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 203 

porting themselves, and adding real wealth to the 
country, instead of a mere capacity to consume and 
thereby enrich foreigners. But for this ability aris- 
ing from slave labor, enabling us, to buy so much 
abroad, we would have been forced by the neces- 
sity of the case to supply ourselves, and thus not 
only have established manufactures, but developed 
the real resources and independence of the coun- 
try. We would have been by this time so far 
advanced in skill and capital that, with our intelli- 
gence, industry, and enterprise, aided by an active 
commerce giving full and efficient effect to them, 
we might and would have been a wealthy nation, 
and been now supplying much of the world with 
articles of our industry, skill, and taste. This peo- 
ple never would have remained inefficient had they 
not been flattered and lulled by the proceeds of this 
slave labor. It employed our shipping and com- 
merce so much that, by the aid of our merchants, 
the slaveholders have governed the country, and 
kept back every other great interest. The coun- 
try is now, or will be, in a situation like an annuitant, 
who, depending literally on the annuity, finds, by 
some revolution, that suddenly stopped. When sla- 
very shall have run itself out, or yielded to the chang- 
es and ameliorations of the times, the owners and 
all dependent upon it will stand appalled and pros- 
trate, as the sot whose liquor has been withheld, 
and nothing but the bad and worthless habit left 
to remind the country of its ruinous effects. The 
political economist, as well as all wise statesmen 



204 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

in this country, cannot think of any measure going 
to discharge slavery, that would not be a worse 
state than its existence. They must therefore pass 
all laws necessary to control it, render it harmless 
as to outbreaks and violence, and, if possible, make 
an efficient labor for the prosperity of the country. 
They cannot push any farther the staples on an 
overloaded and clogged market, and should, by in- 
ducements, divert a portion of this slave labor from 
them and into manufactures. There it would begin 
to count to the country, and through it not only the 
home supply be made, but a surplus convertible 
into capital or money. Results that would aston- 
ish the world might be produced by turning in the 
surplus slaves to manufactures, without diminishing 
one iota our staple productions. We have already 
proved, in a former chapter, that three hundred 
thousand slaves might be taken from agriculture 
and the staples, to their relief, and applied to ma- 
chinery. This amount of labor, on the scale that 
England and this country work up to, could pro- 
duce two hundred million dollars annually. Their 
productions in this line would find a market abroad 
from their cheapness, because the character of the 
labor would be so efficient, and cost only one-sixth 
of what other labor standing on regular wages 
would require. I repeat, then, that slavery and its 
labor enter deeply into all projects relating to the 
wealth, advancement, and development of this na- 
tion, and should be regarded by our political econ- 
omists as a powerful ingredient. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY, 205 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

LABOR, WAGES, PROFITS. 

Adam Smith and the early writers on political 
economy consider truly labor and its wages as the 
key to all wealth and human availability. They 
took it for granted that the wages of labor in all 
countries tended to find its level and maintain an 
equilibrium in all departments or employments, 
and that any bounty made the products of labor 
permanently dearer by that much. They did not 
conceive of facts now abundantly proved, that 
whole departments of labor, or occupations where 
an expensive outlay for machinery is necessary, 
remain whole ages untouched without some protec- 
tion or bounty, and that individual labor enters 
them not for the reasons given in a former chapter. 
They did not know the fact that bounty or protec- 
tion induces so much skill and competition that the 
goods soon become cheaper than others in propor- 
tion, and more than pay back the bounty. Con- 
vinced as they were, they necessarily were the 
advocates of free trade, and against all restric- 
tions. 

In former times, when the hands and some sim- 



206 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

pie tools or fixings performed all the operations, 
and labor-saving machinery scarcely existed, the 
wages of labor entered deeply into all calcula- 
tions, and produced great results. Now, when 
machinery does almost all the work, and requir- 
ing only some skill to direct it, no matter how 
weak and delicate the hands may be, the ground 
is materially changed. Mankind, as to labor and 
its wages, stand so nearly upon the same level 
that the difference is hardly appreciable. The 
new nations, where labor is scarce and somewhat 
dearer, generally make it up in the greater fertility 
of soil, plenty of provisions, the possession of the 
raw material, and having few debts or taxes to 
pay. They are more enterprising in their char- 
acter also, spring quicker into new and promising 
occupations, and have more versatility in their pur- 
suits. They can afford to risk more than old 
nations, because they have more recuperative en- 
ergy and can sooner recover from loss. Old nations 
are weighed down with paupers, tithes, aristocracy, 
debts, and taxes, all of which circumstances do 
nearly make up for any apparent difference in 
wages. The high vantage ground that capital, 
machinery, skill, organization, and the possession 
of all the commercial agents and facilities give to a 
nation, has not been estimated high enough by those 
writers that go against restriction, protection, and 
bounties. It did not enter into A. Smith's ideas 
that any nation could keep those advantages under 
the operation of a free trade ; and that the equili- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 207 

brium the wages of labor tends to would be inad- 
equate to countervail and equalize them. Expe- 
rience now speaks, and the policy of nations must 
regard its voice. Abstractions and theories go 
along in a straightforward way, and do not enough 
regard the circumstances of nations to conform to 
their peculiarities, and profit by their actual condi- 
tion as to capital and skill. This single fact, 
which we now consider proved, that is, that na- 
tions which have the vantage ground and start will 
keep it, seems to render half the reasoning of these 
writers of no practical use. All they say is in favor 
of free trade and against restrictions. This broad 
principle knocked away from under them leaves 
the most beautiful part of their fabric without 
support, and lets it tumble to the ground. Instead 
of nations tending to the principles of free trade, 
they evidently look to total exclusion. I regard, 
then, all nations as nearly equal in this respect. 
Young nations commit one very common error, 
that of leaning on the provision and raw material 
culture, and depending on selling enough abroad 
to buy their fine manufactured articles, thereby 
losing all the wide difference between the raw and 
wrought values of things. This gives to them a 
hand-and-mouth existence, consuming, annually, 
their productions, and realizing nothing in the 
shape of capital or money. If they had set out by 
supplying their own consumption, and bought no- 
thing from abroad — even if they had sold but little 
or less raw material to foreign countries — they 



208 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

would have been accumulating all the time, and 
gradually realizing available capital in the shape 
of money. The people who live in an old nation, 
where every ground is preoccupied, and no changes 
from father to son in their pursuits, are less enter- 
prising, because they are afraid to risk any thing ; 
any loss would not only jeopardize but ruin them, 
and lead to suffering. They cannot turn to other 
things or employments like a young, versatile peo- 
ple. Success is life or death with them, bread or 
starvation, and they stick to old forms, old machin- 
ery, and work to a disadvantage; which consid- 
erations make up still more the difference in wages. 
It is not difference in wages that determines nations 
to one or another course, but the circumstances. 
Young nations, by having fertile lands, and abun- 
dance of provisions, and raw materials, lean on 
them, and go to exporting them as their resources. 
Old nations, having exhausted these resources, and 
finding the work of their hands in the shape of 
manufactures more available, and ready sale, go 
on increasing until they grow rich. Other nations, 
becoming scathed by superstition and despotism, 
and without any guarantee or security for their 
labor, sink into^a semi-barbarous state, do no more 
than the first necessity of life absolutely requires 
of them, and stand in the way of no other n&tions, 
neither as producers nor consumers. 

There are two distinct sorts of laborers; the one 
on their own account, and with their own hands 
or simple tools, and may be called manipulators, 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 209 

and own or enjoy all the profits; the others work- 
ing under capital and capitalists, and are hirelings 
by the day only, without having any share of the 
profits beyond their w 7 ages. The wages in the one 
case are merged in the profits, in the other stand 
clear, by the day, week, month, or year. Competi- 
tion reduces, very often, the w 7 ages of hirelings 
down to mere support, or food and clothing ; then 
it stands on the same footing or principle of slave 
labor, only is more wasteful, less controllable, and 
becomes dissipated and reckless when poor-rates 
are within its reach, on wiiich to lean and depend. 
In regard to his own interest, there is nothing cre- 
ative in the daily wages of the hireling who knows 
his limit and has no hopes beyond it. The mani- 
pulator, or handicraft manufacturer, on the con- 
trary, is all the time creating and giving value to 
his labor, which he realizes as profit. In all coun- 
tries do we find the handicraft occupations first in 
starting and subserving a country ; partly because 
capital is not necessary to them, but more because 
all the profit goes to the laborer. This class of 
laborers often realize much, and lay up, money; 
hirelings hardly ever do realize for themselves, and 
generally live up to their wages, leaving all the 
profits to the capitalist. It makes rather a gloomy 
picture when we say that the tendency of things 
the world over is, that the competition in labor 
will bring down all wages to bare subsistence 
and support, and this with more certainty as ma- 
chinery becomes more perfect and is applied to 

15 



210 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

almost every purpose. In nations without capital 
the handicrafts are always first to start and do 
well, because the prices of the things they make 
have but little control on the laborer, who sees 
his labor creating a value where there was none 
or. but little before; and be that value much or 
little, it is his own, and he can afford it at the 
market price, whatever that be. Wages, then, 
may realize capital or may not, according to cir- 
cumstances, for the laborer; but must be realizing 
for the capitalists all the time, or the whole opera- 
tions cease. The elements of wages, then, are 
subsistence first, which must be had in all cases, 
and profits next, which must accrue to the capi- 
talists and the handicrafts, or they cease to operate. 
The handicraft laborers have the advantage of scat- 
tering themselves through all countries among the 
consumers, and can by barter accomplish much. 
A farmer often will buy an article when he can 
pay for it in provisions, when he would not with- 
out ; for then all is completed, and none of the 
contingencies of the markets encountered. The 
value of such small interchanges is much greater 
and of more consequence than they get credit for. 
It is on this principle that you see shoemakers, 
carpenters, brick and stone masons, blacksmiths, 
tailors, millwrights, wagon-makers, cabinet-mak- 
ers, and all such useful handicraft trades mixed 
all through the country, and among the farmers, 
mutually bartering and interchanging their labors. 
The great question which must ultimately come 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 211 

home to man, as to whether machinery ought to be 
employed or not, cannot be entertained or dis- 
cussed, only of such countries as China or Japan, 
where labor teems enough to do all the work of 
machinery, and even of beasts, so as to completely 
banish both, and where they count not upon, and 
live without, the trade and commerce of other na- 
tions. If nations stood alone, like China or Japan, 
with their full and ultimate population, and a large 
portion suffering for very subsistence, then it would 
be better to banish machinery, and even horses, 
and avail of hand-labor, lest a portion of food neces- 
sary to human sustenance be consumed by quadru- 
peds ; accordingly those two nations have done so. 
Europe, connected by commerce and struggling in 
full competition, dare not do it ; because the nation 
that first did it would be thrown out of all the mar- 
kets. From the foregoing remarks there is not 
much advantage in a nation having a dense popu- 
lation and surplus labor in manufacturing, provided 
a sufficient number of hands be found to attend 
machinery. We should not refrain from the estab- 
lishment of manufactories fearful of wanting la- 
borers : present the handles of machinery, and a 
plenty of hands will be found to take hold of them, 
and not only meet our own supply, but the foreign. 

Labor is much more efficient in some countries 
than in others. We have already remarked on the 
great action our climate gives to us, and that we 
show it in the management of ships, farming move- 
ments, manipulations, and in manufacturing. Our 



212 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

intelligence and free institutions, it has been said, 
count us Largely in our operations, as well as all 
the advantages o( having the raw material, the 
consuming market, and the great abundance of 
provisions. Small advantages count, and 1 will 
mention (hat Protestant countries find in the year 
thirty more days in which to labor than the Catho- 
lics, taking into the estimate that number of festi- 
vals ami holy-days more than the Protestants keep. 
This is no small difference, and would make up 
the profits of laborers, and, other advantages being 
equal, be sure to carry the market, ami stand them 
en the vantage ground. Connected with this is 
the greater degree o( ignorance in which supersti- 
tious people are immersed, throwing them still fur- 
ther, relatively, in the back-ground. In times 
when competition is full, commerce open, and mar- 
kets, like mistresses, to be won by skill, small ad- 
vantages and savings count. There are national 
habits that bear directly on wages, The people 
oi' some nations become accustomed to privations, 
have few wants, and get along all the time with- 
out excitement or ambition. In such nations wa- 
ges are low, ami kept so all the time; a little mo- 
ney goes with such a great, way, and they, content 
to live in a hand-and-iuouth way, never accumulate 
capital, often stop work and spend it when in 
hand. The Italians ami Grecians would be exam- 
ples o( such people. In such countries, although 
wages are low they do not profit by it, tor the 
want o( energy, industry, and ambition ; and are 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 213 

generally outstripped by bolder nations, where 
Wages are higher, and the mass of laborers feel 
the force of the excitement of the accumulation of 
capital. Sterility of soil makes it necessary for a 
people to be moral, industrious, and economical, 
and therefore fits them admirably for successful 
manufacturers. The soil denying to them a profit, 
they naturally betake themselves to fabrications 
and creations of their own industry. The steadi- 
ness and high confidential character that their mo- 
rality gives theui, the shrewd shifty cunning im- 
parted by their limited circumstances, the privations 
they are accustomed to, and the few wants they 
have, render them irresistible as manufacturers, 
and their savings and profits accumulate wealth 
and capital rapidly. They soon are known and 
felt in whatever market they enter, and their goods 
generally preferred, for their character is necessary 
to their continued success. The Yankees and 
Swiss are illustrations of these remarks ; and, from 
their barren rocks and mountains, are putting 
large portions of the world under contribution. 
Confined countries force their people also into suc- 
cessful manufacturers, on a principle somewhat 
similar. No room for agriculture — they are oblig- 
ed to betake themselves to trade and manufactur- 
ing; and, after starting, go on, as Tyre and Sid on of 
old, and Hamburgh, Bremen, Frankfort, Venice 
and Genoa, in modern times, and furnish striking 
examples. All the instances that we have given, 
prove that the operations of mankind and nations 



214 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

are very much dependent on circumstances, and 
confirm the great principle or rule that we set out 
upon, that all political economy is the creation of 
circumstances, and whoever undertakes to direct 
a nation or a people, of course must closely regard 
their circumstances. We see, therefore, without at 
all calling in question the abstract principles and 
truths in relation to wages, labor, profits, and cap- 
ital, that they depend Very much on circumstances. 
Wages are high or low, accordingly as labor is 
well or badly employed. We can in all cases, 
without Adam Smith, or Mr. Jay, see at a 
glance, when we understand the condition of the 
markets, the raw materials, the wants of the coun- 
try, and the amount of its capital, what is wanted 
to give effect to and secure the profits of labor. 
We see that labor may earn something or nothing 
beyond bare support; that it often goes to work 
from its own impulses; is very generally governed 
by the circumstances in which it is placed, but 
often needs the protection and inducements of 
governments to go to work rightly and profitably, 
especially when working with machinery and un- 
der capitalists ; and that the ultimate tendency of 
all labor in these times of perfect machinery is to 
minimum wages, and a lean support. We see also 
that there is but little difference in the labor of all 
countries, when the wages, quality, and all other 
circumstances are brought in and estimated; and 
that nations need not, or ought not, to govern them- 
selves by any seeming difference in wages, but 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 215 

effectuate, regardless of that, any plans they may 
have requiring the employment of labor. 

Most of the realization that is secured and en- 
joyed in all countries is the result, either of labor 
when producing no direct wages, or from the growth 
of countries. As we remarked, the labor of man 
in the ordinary routine of society, builds up cities, 
farms, houses, roads, canals, bridges, tools, ships, 
boats, and a thousand things that are wealth and 
show an advance, without any money accumula- 
tion, or active capital. Again, the advance of 
population and wants in all countries, make the 
lands valuable. Whole quarters of cities and vil- 
lages, and dense settlements, grow upon the lazy 
accidental landholders ; and as in the case of the 
Marquis of Westminster and others, they wake up 
to lordly wealth. I could number half a mil- 
lion of substantial farmers in the United States, 
East and West, who became men of substance by 
the growth of the country around them, lands 
rising from a quarter dollar an acre up to sixty, 
whilst they were in the mean time struggling 
with an overloaded market, and making nothing 
but a bare support on their farms. There is every 
difference in the availability of wealth, whether it 
be in this shape, or accumulated monied capital. 
It takes money, detached, hoarded and accumu- 
lated capital, to stir up new lines of business, put 
labor to work, and build machinery and factories. 
The country, on any emergency, looks not to the 
houses and farms for immediate relief, but to the 



216 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

monied capital. A people may advance, become 
in one sense wealthy, and have almost no money. 
They may become very snug and comfortable by 
interchanging their labor, and working in manu- 
facturing up to the home market, if that be secured 
to them. To accumulate monied capital, however, 
as a nation, something foreign, either in the shape 
of an active commerce, or exporting large quanti- 
ties of raw materials, provisions, or goods, seems 
necessary, and that under circumstances to have 
the balance in her favor. 



CHAPTER XXV 



WAR AND TAXATION. 



War is a very exciting, though rather an acci- 
dental thing. It throws a people on their resources, 
sharpens their wits, produces cases that show what 
is necessary, speaks often in the imperative mood, 
and says certain things must be done. We are a 
striking example of this. In our late war with 
England, we began it without the common neces- 
saries of life, much less of war. We made our 
arms and cannon, our powder and munitions, our 
common cotton and woollen goods; some blankets, 
flannels, salt, iron, and many things that now are 
in successful train from that impulse. Nothing that 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 217 

we then began to make has disappeared, but all 
have gone ahead, and many of them into full rival- 
ry with England. Until that war we did not think 
of manufactures, and but for it, and the difficulties 
that led to it, we would have been, doubtless, ser- 
vile customers fifty years longer of England. That 
war has been worth one thousand million dollars 
to us, and will be worth, in the run of time, 
incalculably more. Our independence dates as 
much, or ought to do so, from it, as from the Re- 
volution. The Revolution did not make us free, 
because we were free before ; it merely set us to 
digging the soil and building ships. We were as 
much bound to England after the Revolution as 
before, because dependent on her for all our neces- 
saries and luxuries. The last war taught us to 
make these things, and now we are free indeed ; 
and now we understand the meaning of the term 
independence. In Europe, war has frequently 
stirred up nations to great and capital efforts, and 
placed them on new grounds, and their whole in- 
dustry and resources on totally different footings. 
The wars with Spain and Holland made England 
a manufacturing and commercial people. The 
wars waged by Germany on Venice, Genoa, and 
Italy, transferred commerce and manufactures to 
Flanders and the Hanse Towns. Wars have built 
up France, Prussia, and many other parts of Eu- 
rope, and made them independent and rich. Wars 
waged in the spirit of civilization, as they now are, 
prostrate nothing — extinguish nothing in the arts 



218 NOTES ON POLITICAL EJONOMY. 

or agriculture. On the contrary, a great deal of 
money is expended, resources cherished, and every 
thing, even agriculture, stimulated. Lombardy, 
Belgium, and the Rhenish provinces, the seats of 
war for two or three centuries, are the best culti- 
vated portions of Europe. The stimulus of war is 
occasionally necessary to all people. Nations, like 
individuals, require excitement — need to have their 
resources tried, their principles tested, and their 
characters vindicated and brightened. In a Ions: 
peace a people become rusty, selfish, sluggish, and 
less spirited. They either degenerate into sloth ful- 
ness and meanness, or become absorbed in small 
gains, and show a trafficking, cheating, money-lov- 
ing, truckling spirit. They want arousing or 
awakening up to boldness of character, enterprise, 
generosity, and sentiments of glory and honor. 
Wars lead to glory ; honor is in the train. If the 
nation be free, it gains many qualities and senti- 
ments necessary to appreciate and secure liberty. 
Even in a monarchy it lifts the character, and en- 
nobles the feelings so much, that no despotism 
would be tolerated. In a republic, particularly, 
every thing is restless and turbulent in times of 
profound peace. 

No country needs a war half as much as these 
United States. All sorts of party spirit — senti- 
ments of disunion, tariff and anti-tariff, Jeffersonian 
democracy, Clay conservative declarations, slavery 
and anti-slavery, abolitionism, and antimasonry, 
state-rights and federal principles, nullifications 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 219 

and nationals, general suffrage and property quali- 
fications, and a thousand other feelings, parties, and 
principles, are all the time struggling for the mas- 
tery, at the expense of the best interests of this 
nation, if not its very existence. The national 
character is too low to be felt sufficiently to check 
and put to rest these diversified interests and tur- 
bulent feelings. A war would lift the federal power 
out of the very dust where it lies, and give to it a 
character, a name, and perhaps a glory that would 
cause it to be respected, and impart to the people 
some pride in it. Our feelings of patriotism and 
love of country are so scattered and divided be- 
tween the states and the general government, that 
they have no force, and scarcely exist. Every day 
things get worse, our national sentiments more 
weakened, and the nation rendered less efficient. 
Our resources are either wasted by neglect, scat- 
tered by division, or lying totally undeveloped. 
Our manufacturers are not encouraged, our agri- 
culture overloaded, our staples overdone, and our 
commerce hobbling on, for the want of rightly un- 
derstanding its relations and interests. Much of 
our capital has left the country to buy what we 
ought to make at home, and debts enough owed 
abroad to take the remainder, unless we soon 
change our policy. Our active statesmen have 
turned demagogues, and are serving their own base 
purposes by the meanest and most unprincipled 
intrigues and corruption, instead of studying the 
true policies of the country and carrying them into 



220 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

effect. Nothing but a war can save us — can bright- 
en our escutcheon, lift us above all this meanness 
and local feeling, and make and preserve us a na- 
tion. I say make, because we really require new- 
modelling, new characters, new and better feelings, 
more available principles, a purer patriotism, and 
more efficient employment of our labor. We have 
let the rabble into a controlling power by our gen- 
eral suffrage, and allowed the states to cleave down 
the central or federal government, until its giant 
limbs lie more enthralled than did Gulliver's. War, 
besides setting the national feeling aright, would 
cultivate our resources, and give a final and effec- 
tual support to our labor. We would come out of 
it with renewed energies, sentiments of patriotism, 
character of glory and honor, and move off as a 
great nation ought to do under such impulses. Our 
statesmen, for the nation's sake, ought to encourage 
a war whenever it can be done consistently with 
justice and honor, and our political economists feel 
that through it would be the readiest road to real 
independence, manufacturing, and commercial 
wealth. They ought to do every thing but create 
a war ; never avoid one, rather invite it and meet 
it more than half way. Without glory and a high 
national character a republic is nothing, and a 
monarchy a tame and leaden concern. 

The monarchies of Europe could much sooner 
extinguish our republic by leaving us in peace to 
corrode our own vitals, than by fighting us. We 
would in a tough war exert an elasticity that would 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 221 

astonish the old world, and impose upon them a 
respect for our character that would affect the fu- 
ture destiny of the old regimes. Our scattered 
sympathies would then he collected ; not the federal 
government, but the local hydras would be nulli- 
fied ; not the conservative power of the Union, but 
the unnatural and illegitimate feelings that our 
demagogues in times of a long peace have had time 
to mature and strengthen. A confederation soon 
commences an action on herself, on her own mem- 
bers, unless a foreign war engages her restless 
demagogues. All the parts stand out distinctly, 
and, without amalgamation enough to blend them 
into harmony, thrust at each other, and cherish 
the strongest jealousies and bitterest feelings. 
The local sovereignties, standing fully organized, 
are ready for prompt action ; not like the case 
where individuals would have to combine, and 
could be defeated before they matured any plan or 
concert. A war, attended with national glory, 
alone can compress and keep in their places these 
turbulent states, these local, organized, inherent 
sovereigns, and centre all the conflicting interests 
into some great focus. 

Political economy is much concerned in taxa- 
tion, and should zealously inquire into the best 
modes of taxing ; the general effect of all or any 
tax ; and must in reference to it have regard to the 
circumstances of the nation. Taxes are necessary, 
and should be laid so as not to shock public opin- 
ions and prejudices, or bear injuriously upon any 



222 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

interest. As long as a nation imports enough, the 
best mode of raising a revenue is on imposts ; be- 
cause it operates equally, and is easily and quietly 
collected, without any thing inquisitorial or offen- 
sive in its mode. Whether in the shape of imposts 
or direct, a tax can discriminate, and aid the best 
interests of the country, either by avoiding such as 
require cherishing, or by bearing heavily upon such 
as are of no great consequence and can better bear 
it. Until a nation be ready to prohibit, she ought 
to tax foreign manufactures high, so as to favor 
any thing of her own production in that way. It is 
generally bad policy to tax raw materials, or labor 
in any shape. In time all nations must and will 
make their own goods at home up to their con- 
sumption ; this is a mark that all move up to ; then 
the tax on imports would necessarily be confined to 
such things as could not be grown or produced — 
such as tropical luxuries, or the growth peculiar to 
some regions only. If these did not furnish revenue 
enough, and the tax had to come home and fasten 
upon the operations of the country, it should avoid 
the laborer and all articles of the first necessity as 
far as could be done. The ad valorem principle is 
the fairest on a general scale, but articles of luxury 
should be singled out for special taxing, as best 
able to bear it, and less disturbing the industry of 
the country. Capital ought not to be taxed when 
it is in the shape of public improvements or vested 
in manufacturing, because there it is best subserv- 
ing the country. When, however, it is on interest, or 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 223 

banking, or in agriculture and speculation, or lands. 
or foreign stocks, or not in some direct way touch- 
ing the springs of industry in the great departments 
named, it is a proper subject of an ad valorem tax. 
Whether a national debt is an evil or not depends 
on circumstances. If it be owned by her own peo- 
ple, and not heavy enough to require the taxing of 
labor, and the consumption of necessaries, it is no 
burthen at all ; but if labor has to be taxed, neces- 
saries reached, and the stock be held abroad, it is 
a serious evil, a millstone about the nation's neck, 
and a clog on her industry. The English debt, 
being held at home, its burthen arises from its mag- 
nitude, obliging taxes to go upon every branch of 
industry and consumption to meet its interest. 
Within the limits above named, a debt is a blessing. 
It cements and consolidates the fa brie of a gov- 
ernment, by making the most sordid concerned in 
its prosperity, and is a stimulus on all the industry 
and operations. A nation then has been aptly 
described as giving a mortgage for her good behav- 
ior ; and I will add, a pledge and guarantee of her 
industry. Such a debt comports with patriotism, 
and stimulates an eternal vigilance over the insti- 
tutions of the country. When a nation has idle 
capital, it is a godsend to have a debt within the 
above described limits ; offering a safe and ready 
investment, which does not sink, or destroy, or even 
deaden capital ; for in the shape of national stocks 
it is just as available : can found institutions, en- 
dow schools, provide for the widow and orphan, 



224 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and, when wanted, turn into machinery and manu- 
factures. 

The worst state of a public debt is where its 
evidences or stocks are held abroad. It then taxes 
the country for the benefit of foreigners, and ex- 
hausts, in the rapid way that spending incomes 
abroad or buying all we use from abroad does 
and will do. We so far are subservient and even 
subject to foreigners, unless we resort to the dis- 
graceful course of repudiating it, or refusing to pay 
the interest on it, which would be infinitely worse 
than the taxation necessary to meet it. Political 
economy should avoid that sort of debt that would 
bind us abroad ; that would be heavy enough to 
affect industry in the shape of labor, or necessary 
consumption ; but rather invite that which would 
be held at home ; offer investments to capital ; and 
not add to the burthens enough to be injuriously 
felt. Such a debt tends also to fasten and keep 
capital in the country, and prevent that wild specu- 
lation which capital indulges in, when devoid of 
employment at home. A rational view of this sub- 
ject would correct that slang that demagogical 
politicians indulge in, going to denounce all nation- 
al debt, and preaching up crusades against it. 
Many objects of national improvement require 
some debts to be incurred, and the nation is greatly 
gainer by them, even at the expense of some taxa- 
tion. Often great interests are thereby developed, 
and brought not only into existence, but to a mar- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 225 

ket. Rather than see its population remain in ig- 
norance and uneducated, a nation ought to incur a 
debt for a general school fund ; and rather than be 
insulted, and have its national character sullied, and 
its glory extinguished, it ought to go up to the last 
limit of a bearable debt. All nations have seen the 
time, and will see it, when manufactures ought to 
be not only started, but aided, if necessary, by 
loans, and a debt or taxation encountered for them. 
Great caution ought to be observed by political 
economists in paying off a debt. Sometimes it 
would be much better to use money in developing 
other interests, if any, than in paying off a debt that 
is not oppressive. To pay off a debt discourages 
capitalists, and inclines them to look abroad for 
more permanent employment of their capital, and 
there is a risk of losing that much money from the 
country. We should not console ourselves with 
the idea that the interest would be owned here, 
even if the capital did seek foreign investment. 
That is not always the case, for capitalists are very 
apt to follow their money and reside abroad, when 
it would be there spent. There is always a wide- 
spread shock occasioned by paying off a large debt. 
The thousand investments in favor of the widows, 
orphans, schools, improvements, manufacturing, or 
other developments, become disturbed and broken 
up, and much confusion ensues. At no one time 
ought too much to be discharged ; not enough to 
convulse or distract any interest, or drive capital 
abroad or into wild speculation. A nation may 

16 



226 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

check the over production of any one article, should 
too much labor and capital incline to go into it, by 
a tax on such production over a certain quantity, 
or amount, or bulk ; on all cotton bales over a 
certain number, or the hogsheads of tobacco over 
a certain amount, or manufacturing stock over a 
certain amount, or any other thing that threatened 
either a monopoly or a prostration of the market. 
Should a fear be entertained that manufactures 
will go too far, and produce distress by their com- 
petition, they might be limited to the home supply 
by a tax on the exportation of them, or such as 
sought a foreign market. Political economy may, 
under certain circumstances of a country, wield a 
war, a national debt, and taxation, so as to do much 
good in building up its character, as well as sub- 
serving manufactures, agriculture, and commerce. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

EXTENSION OF TERRITORY TEXAS, OREGON, ETC. 

Our political economists should vehemently op. 
pose any further extension of territory. We have 
acquired Louisiana and the Floridas, and are now 
reaching after Texas, Oregon, and even California. 
We have spread the thin texture of our population 
already over millions of square miles, until its whole 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 227 

tenacity is lost, and it lias, for many purposes, no 
efficiency. This extent of country disjoints all of 
our feelings and interests, and weakens our sympa- 
thies with one another. A population must have 
a certain density to accomplish any great object. 
We lie too much scattered to be connected by any 
system of internal improvement ; half of our people 
are in the mud, and a large portion too remote from 
markets to reach any. Hunting and drinking take 
up such, and render them semi-barbarous. Where 
roads, canals, bridges, and such works, are wanted 
to be made, there must be a certain density of 
population to furnish the facilities of labor, and 
provisions to aid in the works, and insure a divi- 
dend by the use of them. Thousands of miles stand 
a blank therefore, the population too sparse to have 
any efficiency, or to act promptly or usefully, either 
in repelling invasions or in aiding each other's 
schemes and projects. 

Adding Texas to this country will not only 
prolong the existence of slavery, but give to it a 
new lease, a fresh hold upon the country. As 
well might you attempt to destroy a monster by 
feeding it, giving to it a pure air, unshacklet 
limbs, and a free space to move in, as to hope to 
extinguish slavery by planting it in Texas. The 
only principle that slavery in this country will 
wear out under, is that sort of condensation of pop- 
ulation which will furnish hireling labor as cheap 
as the cost of slave labor, and an abundance of it. 
Is this to be soonest accomplished by condensing 



228 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY". 

or scattering the population ? All now agree, ex- 
cept some enthusiastic abolitionists, that our slaves, 
with the eternal mark of degradation upon them, 
fixed, both by nature and fact, would be worse off, 
more degraded, if possible, and infinitely more im- 
moral and worthless, if made free, than in their 
state of slavery; that no fund, not even of the na- 
tion, is adequate to the purchasing out the right, 
even if the owners were willing ; and would, if 
done, create a much worse state of things, a per- 1 
feet clog to that extent, and a loss of their avails 
able products. No fund could transport them 
across the Atlantic for colonization, or furnish ton- 
nage and rations for such a vast operation. Three 
millions of people, not even by the despotism of the 
Romans, the Czars of Russia, or Asiatic barbarity, 
have ever yet been forced from any country where 
they were native, except by extermination. Slav- 
ery, then, will remain among us, mix in with the 
population in the long run of circumstances, and is 
destined to form the stamina of population, particu- 
larly in the delta of the Mississippi river. Aboli- 
tionism has the cart before the horse in their 
preachments : — instead of the slave running away 
from his owner, the masters are destined to run 
away from the slave, when they no longer yield 
any profit, and nothing but responsibility and 
trouble to the owners. 

A scattered people cannot be collected quick 
enough to repel invasions, or to defend other districts. 
Their greatest security from an enemy is the diffii- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 229 

culty of finding them. None but the active dema- 
gogues, that care not for mud and mire, floods or 
swamps, can collect them at the polls to vote ; and 
they, the voters, knowing no other, throw them- 
selves into such hands. Information, such as would 
subserve them, cannot be imparted : the newspa- 
pers and journals that reach them are of the very 
worst sort ; and it is so hard to apply any system 
of schools or education to them, that nothing of the 
kind is attempted. The Lancastrian monitorial 
plan, with but little expense and great result, can 
be applied to people living together in dense settle- 
ments and villages, but totally fails to reach our 
scattered population. In this sparse state educa- 
tion is aback, improvements are aback, and all 
taste and refinement not only has no place with 
them, but is sneered at and ridiculed. All the na- 
tions of Europe are advancing in the arts, in edu- 
cation, and refinement, because they are teaching 
each other, acting continually on each other, and 
sharing each other's sympathies. The only know- 
ledge our frontier men have is of the forest and 
hunting ; the only activity they boast of is in 
scouring the country, overleaping mountains, mud, 
and sand plains ; and the only patriotism, such as 
they manifest by reading and acting upon the sug- 
gestions of some dirty newspaper that finds them 
through the corruptions of the mail or the designs 
of party. Talk of commerce, they know nothing 
about it ; speak of manufactures, they are told that 
England manufactures for them ; their agriculture 



230 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

is corn and pork, and much of that eaten in the coars- 
est way at home. But for this centrifugal state ? 
our people might have been collected on one third 
of the space, and stood far advanced in all the im- 
provements; would have been now making their 
own supplies, and the country snug and indepen- 
dent. Many differences of interest will naturally 
appertain to a population without any centre of 
action and standard of value, or concert in their 
policies. It would be very difficult to reconcile the 
wide-spread inhabitants of such a disjointed coun- 
try to one another, and to any plan of improvement 
or productive industry that could embrace the 
whole. If wisdom, patriotism, and purity of inten- 
tion, were invited to act, and found no political op- 
position, still they would find great difficulty in ap- 
plying any ameliorating measures to them, any 
uniform system of commerce, agriculture, or manu- 
factures, that would cover the whole ground, em- 
brace such discordant materials, and gather all into 
one focus of national usefulness and individual 
wealth. 

Our politicians and our political economists 
ought to unite in checking this wandering, scatter- 
ing spirit, that seems to know no limit, that is to 
be brought up by the great Pacific ocean only, that 
seeks new countries not on the principle of con- 
quest or national aggrandizement, but merely for 
the pleasure of wandering over and pitching their 
tents upon them. When mankind live more con- 
centrated they act beneficially upon each other 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 231 

New inventions become property in common, new- 
lines of business leading to profits and wealth are 
seen by all, copied by all, and a great excitement 
and ambition take hold of all, and they advance 
together, stimulating each other, rising with each 
other, and have each other's sympathy and support. 
A dense settlement has in its own bosom a thou- 
sand facilities for improvements, and the effectu- 
ating and carrying out any project or plan that 
promises well. Taste, refinement, luxury, educa- 
tion, social and moral excellence, the appreciation 
of character, the accumulation of wealth and capi- 
tal, the spirit of enterprise, of commerce, improve- 
ment in agriculture, in manufacturing, and all the 
aspirations to comfort, some standing in society, and 
some name or character for some available acts or 
operations — all are active in a comfortably dense 
population ; nothing in a scattered, semi-barbarous, 
and reckless one. The acquisition of Texas 
would be ruinous, because it would extend and 
foster slavery, and aid all this scattering inefficien- 
cy we speak of. The daily papers and many 
other publications place Texas on the proper 
footing — and no more need be said. The Oregon 
would detach entirely our settlements and defen- 
ces, by the intervention of one thousand miles of 
desert and barren mountains. California worse : 
Canada not worth fighting for ; yet we aim at all 
and each of these regions. From one extremity 
of the country to the other, from Louisiana to 
Maine, from Missouri to Cape Hatteras, all ought 



232 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

to cry out against the acquisition of any more ter- 
ritory, against our disturbing the Indians any more, 
or pushing them further back in the face of solemn 
treaties made with them. To show the reckless- 
ness and want of calculation that has run with 
this scattering of our settlements, and acquiring 
new territory, I will mention one circumstance : 
The cotton staple bore a high price, and was en- 
riching the cultivators of the article, from 1800 to 
1822. They had a permanent estate and price 
both, if they had seen it ; for there was not good 
soil enough to overdo the market and reduce the 
price to almost nothing, as it now stands. These 
very cotton growers, instead of examining the 
ground and understanding their advantages, cla- 
mored for the acquisition, even by force if necessa- 
ry, of the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, 
Chickasaw, Cado, and Q,uapaw countries, and 
forced the government to procure all these regions 
at great expense and inconvenience, furnishing 
three or four times the amount of the cotton lands, 
of an infinitely better quality too, and more than 
doubling the product in a few years. These re- 
gions can produce ten times as much cotton as they 
now do, and will keep the price all the time 
ground down to minimums. Never was such a 
suicidal act witnessed before — never did the in- 
nate habit of dispersing and scattering show such 
a strong example of folly, overruling all private in- 
terests, and blindly sacrificing millions invested in 
farms, and many more millions in the future by the 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 233 

fall of the market. The cotton culture never 
would have been overdone if these tribes had been 
left in possession of their lands, or only disturbed 
as the extension of the market required. 

A certain density of population is necessary to 
a liberal consumption of a country, as well as im- 
provements and a valuable production. Mankind 
act upon each other in reference to their wants, 
style, luxury, tastes, and the quality of the goods 
and food that they consume. One family or indi- 
vidual will not be behind another, and will make 
effort enough to procure whatever is necessary to 
give them character, or rather prevent them falling 
behind their neighbors. A pride and ambition 
walk forth that stimulate them not only to realize 
wealth, but show some style, some comfort, some 
taste and refinement. This is what is called the 
pride of comfort or style, by some writers, and leads 
to high and valuable consumption. When this 
habit is formed it must be gratified, and will make 
uncommon exertions to do it ; will produce more, 
manufacture more, labor more, and be a more effi- 
cient, valuable, and high-minded population. When 
wealth is attained by a people, these habits of a 
higher and better consumption spring up ; and this 
wealth is not only felt in improving a nation and 
people, in establishing manufactures and commerce, 
and a better agriculture, but in the quality of the 
consumption, the general style of living, and the 
general taste that spreads abroad. Wealthy na- 
tions consume more and stimulate more produc- 



234 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

tions than a poor people, unless these latter 
take a turn in commerce and manufacturing that 
creates wealth for them, when they are no longer 
poor, and have the means to consume fully. Ele- 
gance, taste, and refinement, when associated with 
wealth, stand not in the way of industry — rather 
increase its productiveness, from the ambition and 
factitious wants created, and the spirit and pride 
that must be gratified. Plenty of money, therefore, 
carries a people on to still greater wealth, and to 
a high and proud style of living, when dense 
enough to act on each other, and consume largely, 
spend freely, and patronize more extensively the 
tasteful productions of the arts. When new wants 
spring up, the abundance of money steps forth and 
puts in train the machinery and the fixings neces- 
sary to their gratification, and induces the skill and 
labor to take hold and produce them. This plenty 
of money that appertains to dense population gets 
the people in the habit of not only spending freely, 
but raises up all prices of things, such as tavern- 
rates, grain, horses, equipage, furniture, wages, as 
in England : still it does no harm when they supply 
themselves ; for being all within themselves, is bal- 
anced in the rounds, and prices of all graduate to 
one another. A nation with a great plenty of mo- 
ney, is always ready armed cap-a-pie for any thing 
that offers, and is continually putting into opera- 
tion new things, developing new resources of the 
nation, and, if properly enlightened and free, is 
foremost in every market, and in all beneficial bu- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 235 

siness. An abundant capital, therefore, is not a 
check on a nation's industry, but a vast and ready 
means of placing and keeping her ahead of others, 
when dense enough to act on each other, and feel 
each other's stimulus. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

BANKS, MONEY COMPANIES, ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL, 
BALANCE OF TRADE, &C. 

The policy of making banks and issuing paper 
money, and increasing artificially the capital of a 
country, should deeply engage the attention of the 
political economist. Occasions may occur in young 
and vigorous countries, where much is necessary to 
be developed, and of a safe character, that capital 
might be beneficially increased by factitious issues. 
These paper dollars appear and execute their great 
purposes, by starting works and operations that 
afterwards go on themselves, without continual aid. 
All issues ought to be convertible into specie to 
carry confidence ; and if, on emergencies, they 
should fail to represent specie, the nation ought to 
stand behind them, and make them good in the 
end, by receiving them for their dues. A bank 
whose issue was thus guaranteed could not do 
much mischief, even if it had to wind up. In com- 



236 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

mercial cities banks do good, as depositories or 
centres where capital is collected and placed out 
on short loans upon business paper, and give great 
activity to business by their daily operations. 
Loans by the year, or long enough to base any 
annual improvement upon, become jeopardized by 
all the changes incident to business ; and if runs 
be made, the banks have to stop, because they 
cannot call in quick enough to meet them. In long 
discounts, therefore, banks do more harm than 
good, for they induce customers who enter upon 
establishments requiring a long time to mature 
them, and on the least alarm curtail upon them so 
rapidly that the individual has to stop, and very 
likely the bank too, to the distraction of the coun- 
try. The very time, therefore, that the aid of the 
banks is most wanted by individuals, in times of 
pressure, these banks have to curtail, withdraw 
their support, and ipso facto make the pressure 
double upon their customers ; and, if this be not 
done, have to stop specie payments. They stand 
then in a situation to do mischief from necessity — 
either their customers or themselves must fail in 
difficult times, and frequently, in the doubtful strug- 
gle, both, and leave the country worse off and 
more depressed than if they had never existed. 
Paper issued on the credit of a government would 
do more good ; for that, not claiming to represent 
specie, and yet having the government endorsement, 
and made receivable for its dues, would stand in 
credit in even difficult times, unless too much of it 



Notes on political economy. 23? 

were thrown out. The works put into operation 
by bank facilities or government credits remain, 
and are a part of our wealth ; like the scaffold- 
ing of a building, which, when knocked away, 
leaves the work in all its beauty and usefulness to 
subserve the public. Whether, then, banking be 
resorted to or not with any favorable result, will 
depend on circumstances connected with the state 
of that country, which would require the considera- 
tion of the political economist ; and the case must 
be strong and urgent to warrant such institutions as 
a means of adding to the capital of the country. 
Banks do good, however, on the principle that Hol- 
land, England, and France use them, as mere de- 
positories of specie and bullion, upon which con* 
vertible paper is issued, that, from its lightness, 
favors transportation, travelling, and exchange. 

We have shown, in a former chapter, that 
there are times and occasions in most countries 
when certain manufactures or branches of agricul- 
ture require to be developed for the independence 
and comfort of that country : at such times the 
nation ought to step forward with its funds, if it 
has any, or its credit, if that be available, and make 
loans or offer bounties to have the article in ques- 
tion produced. This would be in the nature of a 
factitious currency, or a temporary increase of 
money. The productions thus brought into exist- 
ence often reimburse the capital directly; and 
again, by the increase of productive wealth, made 
available. All nations have their crises, not only as 



238 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

to war and the asserting of their liberties, but as 
to the developing of their resources ; and at such 
times, if individual wealth and capital be inade- 
quate, the nation should step forward and do what 
the case calls for, and not lose the chance of any 
great operation. If nations would be on the watch 
for such crises, avail themselves of them, and secure 
the benefits accruing, they might become rich by 
such happy strokes of policy. The nations that do 
get the start of the world have embraced many 
such operations, and turned all favorable circum- 
stances to account, by stimulating and aiding indivi- 
duals to realize the advantages offered. The .Eng- 
lish history is full of such crises, and the rapid 
developments based upon them seen and stimulated 
by her vigilant government. 

An extreme case may be encountered when it 
might do good temporarily to debase the coin and 
sink the standard ; I mean the case where a nation 
does not make its supply at home, and all its capital 
or money is leaving it to buy goods abroad that 
ought to be made at home. To prevent what little 
specie they have, which is never much under those 
circumstances, leaving the country, they might 
debase it, and thus keep it ibr a while at home. 
The citizens of such a country being accustomed 
to see its coin buy according to its face, cannot re- 
concile it to their notions of interest to feel that it 
was not buying its usual quantity, and pause to 
do things at home as a matter of necessity. Such 
a resort, however, is indicative of a wretched policy 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 239 

in the country ; and, in the nature of a desperate 
remedy, is temporizing in its character, and merely 
intended to throw difficulties in the way of a false 
and ruinous business. Rather than leave every 
department of industry undeveloped, and without 
capital to stimulate them, a country had better 
risk something in banks, factitious issues, govern- 
ment credits, or loans, and even debase the coin, 
than stand aback so many years and be utterly 
impoverished. In the great race now going on in 
the world for the high prizes that labor and the 
arts hold forth, every thing should be brought in 
that could aid in the start and contribute to win 
some of the prizes. When a balk is made at the 
start off, a nation scarcely ever again recovers its 
energies for another attempt, and quietly yields the 
palm to her fleeter and prompter rivals. Art is 
resorted to, and often equalizes cases among indi- 
viduals as well as nations; and why not resort to 
it, to make up any deficiency of capital in a nation ? 
Money is nothing but a representative value, and 
why not put out or create enough of these tokens 
of value to do all that is wanted towards a vigor- 
ous start? It might not do to repeat and loan 
more than once such factitious means in the 
same operation, for then a want of confidence and 
a depreciation would defeat the effort. There is a 
tendency in the trade of a country to conform to 
any standard of value that is put out. Every thing 
shapes to it, and all prices quadrate, so that at 
home it makes no difference in the rounds ; and if 



240 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

a nation bought nothing abroad it would matter 
but little to her what her standard value of money 
was stamped with. Japan, that has no intercourse 
with the world, need not care what her coin is, or 
what value it represents. It is in our trade or 
intercourse with foreign nations only that a base 
medium is felt; and whether there be a disadvan- 
tage or not depends, as we have said, on circum- 
stances. 

Money or capital, most writers say, will find 
its level and keep up an equilibrium, no matter 
how much the balance is disturbed. This is not 
true ; and, like a great many sayings that are put 
down as maxims, needs explanation or exposure, 
Instead of money rushing into the bosom of poverty, 
or into the coffers of poor nations, it avoids them, 
for the best reason in the world — because they 
offer no inducements, have nothing to sell or buy 
the money with. It avoids them on the principle 
that upstart wealth would the poor — not because 
they stink, but that they have no use for them, or 
congeniality with them. Where labor is most pro* 
ductive there will capital rush, for there it will find 
not only products to purchase, but a sure basis 
upon which to make investments. Draw, then^ 
the last dollar from a poor nation to furnish its ne- 
cessary supplies, and it will scarcely ever see ano- 
ther dollar; for these dollars remain drawn until 
she changes her policy and makes her labor and 
resources available, through which to get them 
back. We have seen balances remain broken for 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 241 

ages, and capital wholly estranged from countries 
until their own wants operate on them and induce 
supplies created at home, after which capital would 
begin to flow to them again. The wisest nations 
of Europe have manifested the greatest anxiety 
when capital or bullion inclines to leave them : 
England, when her bullion goes to France for corn, 
for she never expects to see it again, and never does, 
for she has nothing to sell to France; she replaces 
it, however, by her tradings with other and more 
short-sighted nations less advanced in the great 
policies of trade and industry. If England and 
France were the only two nations on earth, the 
latter, by her wines, raw silks, laces, and occasion- 
ally corn, would draw every dollar from England, 
because she does sell these things to England and 
buys nothing. Small balances of trade in favor of 
a nation would, in the long run, enrich her, and 
exhaust the country against which they stand, had 
they not, in their turn, some equipoising balances 
against other nations. Capital finds a thousand 
inducements to go to, and be invested in, rich na- 
tions — none in poor ones ; for it not only is in safety, 
but can realize itself and its profits so rapidly, 
when wanted at home, through the valuable pro- 
ducts and exchanges incident to rich countries. 
Let nations, therefore, be guarded against letting 
their capital go out for the purchase of necessary 
supplies, for then it never returns. 

The balance of trade that forms a part of this 
chapter, is indicative of the poverty and wealth, 

17 



212 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and also of the wisdom or folly of nations. These 
balances are either continual, or occasional only. 
They are continually against us in our trade with 
England ; they are occasionally against England 
in her trade with the continent of Europe, particu- 
larly when her corn crop fails. When a nation 
finds the balance against her in a fixed way, she 
ought to stir herself immediately to change it, and 
resort to legislative enactments, if it be necessary, 
of the strongest and most determined kind, before 
it exhausts too much. We, for instance, ought to 
lay a duty on English goods 5 sufficiently high to 
affect the eternal balance of eight or ten millions 
that appears annually against us. We might tax 
the goods that we are in the habit of taking from 
her high enough to stop them, and oblige us either 
to make them or take them from nations that did 
not show an annual balance against us. Had we 
not a scouring trade with other portions of the 
world, that brought in some profit, or a balance in 
our favor, our trade with England would ruin us 
in a few years. It now not only takes our precious 
gains elsewhere, but all the spare cash we have 
besides, to keep it up. It is an unpleasant idea, 
that our active, enterprising whalemen and traders 
have to put in requisition all the seas, all the cli- 
mates, and encounter dangers, disease, and intense 
labor, not to enrich us, but to meet this English 
balance that is swallowing up all thus raked to- 
gether, as well as all at home. How rich we might 
become under this enterprise, but for this wretched 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 243 

policy that makes us subservient to England, 
France, and the old nations of Europe ! A wise 
nation would not let a balance stand against her in 
any part of the globe, would put a finger on it the 
moment it occurred, and make some countervailing 
movement to extinguish it. In estimating the bal- 
ance of trade an allowance must be made for the 
profits of the merchants, ships, and agents, that aid 
in it, and add them on, or deduct them, as circum- 
stances require. In times of a carrying trade, a 
balance may be sometimes borne, when a people 
take goods from one nation to another, and thus 
realize a profit on them ; but this profit must be 
enough to overcome such balance, or it is not worth 
while. Our merchants, who scour the world for a 
profit, sneer at the idea of the balances of trade, 
and call them moonshine ; and our wiseacre politi- 
cians, taking the cue from them, join in the feeling, 
and govern their laws and policies accordingly. 
Time shows this in its true light, and experience 
could speak if its voice were heard. Had we sav- 
ed for fifty years the annual balance England en- 
joyed against us, it would have amounted to five 
hundred millions, which, realized at home, would 
have much enriched us, and might have put quite 
another face on our circumstances. Instead of free 
trade or any abstract doctrine overcoming balances 
of trade, they only make them heavier, and wipe 
them out in the end by insolvencies, or produce that 
horrid state of indebtedness that in another chapter 
we have exhibited against this country. Were there 



244 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

now no nation but this country and England in ex- 
istence, how long would we be able to stand up to 
the balance against us ? Not many years : and we 
should act as if that were the case, and correct it 
accordingly, if we understood our own interests. 

A question has been started by political econo- 
mists, whether capital in a few hands or many is 
most beneficial to a country. When money remains 
in the hands that made it by long savings, the 
owner has a miserly feeling, and when he quits his 
business, is alnrost sure to become a usurer, and 
grind down the poor and needy by high interest • 
then it would do no good. In order to render capi- 
tal available, it must be induced out of the coffers 
of the rich, to go into stock companies or banks, 
and be loaned out for any useful purpose, either in 
aid of internal improvements, or any great opera- 
tions of industry that the wants or policies of the 
nation require. It then gets into the hands of the 
million, touches a thousand springs of industry, 
stimulates the productive labor of the country, and 
gives to it the ability to consume much, as well as 
produce much. All diffusion of money and increas- 
ed ability, however, given to a people that buy their 
supplies abroad, does more harm than good ; for 
then the whole mass into whose hands it has gotten^ 
use up this money in purchasing goods abroad, and 
more of it goes off than if it had remained in the 
coffers of the few capitalists that owned it. We 
furnish the sad case, as noticed in another chapter^ 
of a people who borrowed two hundred millions 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 245 

from England, and scattering it into the hands of 
the whole population by a pretence of making ca- 
nals, or railroads, or banking upon it, all, to the last 
dollar, ran off to Europe for goods, which are con- 
sumed and lost forever, and the debt of the two 
hundred millions fastened upon us and our posterity. 
Stock companies, chartered companies, and as- 
sociated capital, as well as associated labor, are 
often necessary to develope some great works and 
make certain great operations, wholly beyond the 
power and means of individuals to accomplish. 
Many great interests would either suffer or be left 
untouched but for such companies or associations, 
known in law or not, as the case may be. Eng- 
land is full of great works and results from stock 
companies, as large as her capital is ; and France 
has suffered much and been kept back by her re- 
luctance to go into them, or the want of confidence 
she has either in them, or in her government. We 
have done much through stock companies, and 
much yet remains to be done ; and they are espe- 
cially beneficial here where capital is so scarce. 
The members of a stock company, all risking some- 
ting, not the whole of their means, can afford to do 
it, and have each other's counsel, support, and sym- 
pathy in the effort, whatever it be, and are more 
encouraged to go on under small profits. What 
great or noted work scarcely do you see in Eng- 
land or this country, that is not the result of com- 
panies 1 You see a road, a canal, a bridge, a 
ehureh, a school or academy, a large manufactory, 



246 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

and you may be sure they all sprung from company 
operations. Our political economists or politicians 
ought then to encourage such companies, grant to 
them liberal charters, and exempt them from taxes 
and dues. A nation had better also co-operate 
with such companies and become a stockholder 
with them, than to attempt any work themselves ; 
for they are sure to be imposed upon and defrauded, 
not only in the outlay in constructing the works, 
but in the management of them. A sort of un- 
worthy feeling exists among the people, that the 
government is fair game, and can afford to be de- 
frauded. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

POPULATION. 

Population, the principles it depends on, what 
increases it, how it becomes stationary or retro- 
grades, are important questions for political econo- 
mists. It is important to have a full and efficient 
population in all countries, for the defence, wealth, 
and refinement, that ought to accompany every gov- 
ernment or association of the human family. Po- 
litical economists should steer clear on the one 
hand of an increase too fast for the comfortable 
means of support, and of a deterioration that would 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 247 

tend to exhaust or diminish her resources on the 
other hand, and also of a stationary condition that 
would stagnate every thing and produce a leaden 
fixture over the land. New countries, with an 
abundance ofland, and not a surplus of labor, ought 
to encourage the increase of population in every 
way within their reach, both by a native growth 
and an immigration. The natural check and lim- 
it to an increase of population is the capacity of 
the earth to support it and feed it. To this point it 
tends, and nothing in the end can prevent its reach- 
ing this maximum. Under certain circumstances 
and feelings this point will be reached sooner than 
under others ; and in certain countries sooner than 
in certain other countries. This is owing to the 
habits of the people. If they are without any pride 
of style, and content with bare support of food, and 
that of the cheapest and most abundant sort, they 
will condense rapidly, and their natural increase, 
on the principles that pigs multiply, be great; but 
if they have this pride of style and comfort they 
will increase slower, for they will not then marry 
without a certainty of that style, and a great por- 
tion remain unmarried and will contribute nothing 
to our increase. The Irish are a striking instance 
of a people without pride, and who marry and in- 
crease on potatoes alone, in any sort of a dirty hov- 
el. So long, then, as potatoes exist to feed on, will 
they go on multiplying. The English, Scotch, 
French, and Americans, furnish instances of the 
contrary habit; and they regard as necessary 



248 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

some style and comfort, before they will marry at 
all. This pride is a wholesome check on an over- 
grown population tending to suffering, and keeps it 
within the limits of a comfortable support. A pop- 
ulation without pride, or decency, or taste, or capa- 
city to receive improvements, is worse than none, 
and instead of advancing, a nation becomes a mass 
of ignorance, anarchy, and disorder, that is preyed 
upon by the designing, and is in the way of any 
real advancement for such nation. How will this 
thing be corrected or prevented 1 it is asked. I 
know of no other method than to cherish a proper 
feeling of pride in a people ; give to them the idea 
that they are not pigs, and that some style, some 
comfort, and even luxuries, are absolutely neces- 
sary to man. If nothing else will accomplish this, 
let the legislators of a country forbid marriage, un- 
less the parties make a showing of the means of 
living decently. This can be done by withholding 
licenses, declaring illegal all marriages without 
them, and denying to the parents the rights of citi- 
zens, and to the offspring the rights of legitimacy, 
and a penalty might be superadded to insure it. 
The growth of Ireland, without pride or means of 
support, is paving the way for great distress, and 
puts forward a worthless population, that is eating 
into the substance of the others, and forms a check 
to all improvements. There is nothing like an 
early attention to this thing, for after it becomes a 
habit it is hard to break and correct. 

Let a nation beware of any measure that takes 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 249 

away the rights, and of course the pride and self- 
esteem, of a large class of the community, as oc- 
curred in Ireland in reference to the Catholics, for 
it is sure to prostrate them into very brutes. The 
people and their temples sink together into the 
dust, as in Ireland, where the priests followed and 
adhered to the mass of the Catholics ; and all stand 
together on the lowest level of humanity. Nothing 
can raise them, for they have their pastors with 
them, and like the smaller spirits that sunk with 
Satan, are content whilst the leaders share their 
fate. A population without pride cannot be 
brought to labor effectually, either on the farm 
or in manufactories. They have no steadiness of 
purpose, no plans, no responsibility, upon which to 
act, and enforce an obligation to labor, or do a job 
of work. The capacity of the earth to sustain 
population scarcely knows any limit, when you 
brutalize man, and take from him the pride neces- 
sary to an amelioration in his circumstances. If 
the sort of improvement be made that will con- 
trol moisture, make at will manure, or apply 
chemical stimulants to plants, and give to them 
certainty, every rood will not only sustain its man 
but its ten men. Experiments show the practi- 
cability of fifteen hundred bushels of Irish potatoes 
to the acre, and, with a certainty, that is the food 
of forty-five persons for a year, in the last resort. 
And at that rate the world is not yet the ten- thou- 
sandth part up to its capacity to sustain life. 



250 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

The human family certainly are as distinct in 
their capacity to improve, as any two things in na- 
ture can be. The Caucasian, the Tartar, and the 
Malay races advance, and improve their social rela- 
tions and comforts ; the Indians, the Negroes, scarce- 
ly at all, and seem in some way the woodsmen of na- 
ture ; never number a population worth comparing 
to the former races, and never get out of the wilds of 
nature. They are tierce on the principle that wild 
animals are, and courageous as a hungry tiger is, but 
without plan, purpose, or providence. How differ- 
ently the continent of America stood populated 
compared to them ! There was not even a nu- 
cleus of a population upon which to improve on our 
continent. We had to exterminate the race as we 
did wild beasts, before we laid the broad founda- 
tions of an organized society. Experience proves 
that the species were not worth preserving. All 
the efforts of the humane have failed, and continue 
to fail before the energy of Europeans. The policy, 
therefore, that so deeply engages many philanthro- 
pists, shows only the goodness of the heart, not the 
results prognosticated. In the present state of 
our Indians the best is done for them that could 
be effected, and our political economists had 
better let it rest upon this last pledge of the nation 
of lands on the western frontier for them ; and 
merely watch and defend from intrusion the inter- 
est thus conceded. A few more years will destroy 
the game, and then that master necessity, that al- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 251 

ways must be obeyed or death ensues, will act on 
them, and show whether there is any thing in 
them improvable or available. 

A curious problem grows out of the relative 
longevity of this country and Europe. It stands 
on a difference, as far as facts go to show it, 
of ten years in favor of Europe ; say those fa- 
thers of families that die at seventy in Europe do 
not pass sixty years here. Now, if the parents of 
sixty years here have as many children as the 
parents of seventy there, the only difference at 
any given time in the population of the two coun- 
tries will be the few persons then living between 
sixty and seventy years of age, which would not 
much effect the result. A greater degree of lon- 
gevity then is not as much in favor of a country's 
populousness as it might appear at first sight. 

Fixed costumes, fixed notions or modes of liv- 
ing, and fixed pretensions, are what ought to be 
avoided in all countries, if possible. As soon as 
a people feel that there is no more advancing for 
them, that they can accomplish nothing more, 
and have no right to aspire to any thing further, 
there is an end to all improvement, to all amelio- 
ration, and bettering their condition. Such a 
population becomes leaden, and not only station- 
ary, but ready to fall back, and sink still lower 
in the scale, if any thing should require it. If 
mankind do not advance, the next best thing is to 
have the wish to do so, and the susceptibility to 
be acted upon by favorable circumstances. There 



252 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

is some hope of them then, and some foundation 
to build on, when occasion calls it into requisi- 
tion. Can there be a more dead, really inanimate 
state than the castes of Hindostan 1 As well might 
you operate on dead matter, as to any plan of im- 
provements, as upon such a moral and political 
fixedness. Nothing can lift the great weight 
above its calculated level ; nothing counteract the 
vis inertise, the mere gravity of the matter. In 
many parts of Europe, the fixed costume and dress 
of the peasantry seem to say, here we are, and here 
we are destined to remain, and it is folly to aspire 
beyond. In France, and in many parts of Germa- 
ny, there are fixed costumes in the peasantry, 
that indicate their opinions of themselves, and 
how devoid of pretensions they are. When a na- 
tion gets ready to advance in manners, circum- 
stances and information, it should find no difficulty 
in the fixedness and habits of the people to its pro- 
gress, for it loses time to change these and prepare 
them for the changes. 

As nations grow old, if they are well governed, 
they grow in comforts too, and are more healthy. 
The bills of mortality in England, France, and 
Holland, show better than in our country. Fewer 
die out of season, and more of course grow old. 
England has ameliorated in this respect twenty per 
cent, within sixty years. The country becomes 
chastened, better drained, drier, better shaded, the 
inhabitants better sheltered, housed and lodged, 
and warmer clad. A thousand improvements take 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 253 

place in their food, transportation, travelling ; not 
so much in the quality of the food as its regularity, 
and mode of preparing it. Mankind are becoming 
more temperate in eating and drinking, as well 
from necessity as principle. When a people are 
temperate and regular in their diet, have not much 
variety, and few temptations to indulgence, they 
will be more healthy. The principal reason of 
better health, is the purer state of the air, fewer 
malaria, and miasmata, and less nuisance. There 
is a state, however, very different from this, when 
a nation as it advances in population by some bad 
government, advances also in poverty and wretch- 
edness. Disease walks then abroad among such 
a population, and strikes down its thousands. The 
poor wretches rather invite it than avoid it, for it 
becomes a relief to their miseries. None of the 
comforts, none of the precautions are prevalent 
that could either prevent or cure the ill health 
wretchedness is heir to, but the removal of the 
very cause of the wretchedness itself, the full 
sweep of despotism that has produced such misery. 
Where there are no guarantees of safety for either 
persons or property, one unrelenting and ruthless 
tyrant stretching over the whole mass, and urging 
and oppressing a thousand smaller tyrants, who, to 
supply the grasping demands, have to oppress in 
their turn all the wretched population, until all are 
destitute and paralyzed ; what money they have 
then they hide and make nothing, because rapacity 
would seize it. This kind of a population is not 



254 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

only utterly worthless and unavailable, but dis- 
eased from want, privation, and misery. There is 
no remedy for such a condition — all is lost, all is 
brutalized, and could not be reached by any laws 
or rules of economy, and rendered healthy and effi- 
cient, because there is no foundation on which to 
operate. Where tyranny has no check, property 
and persons no guarantee, and industry no result, 
economy can aid naught. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

EDUCATION, AND THE PUBLIC LANDS. 

The education of a country, and the informa- 
tion of the people ought to engage in the deepest 
way our political economists as well as our politi- 
cians. If knowledge is power, as is properly said, 
let us make sure of its influence, and implant 
it firmly in the land. A people are efficient in 
their daily pursuits exactly in proportion to their 
information, and a government wise and powerful 
on the same principle. For no purpose, except the 
establishment and preservation of liberty, should 
a people bear taxation so willingly as to raise a 
literary fund. Our politicians should feel that no- 
thing was done as long as this great field remain- 
ed uncultivated, as long as any portion of the peo- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 255 

pie remained in ignorance. Education is a nation- 
al concern, a first duty, and the only true support 
any free institutions can have, upon which to de- 
pend with certainty. These United States should 
have erected their great landed domain into a fund 
for the education of the whole mass of the people. 
Both primary and finishing schools, rudimental 
foundations and universities, the arts, and agri- 
culture, political economy and religious instruction, 
could all have rested on this wide basis and found 
ample funds and support. A course, however, un- 
worthy of such a people with such a fund has been 
pursued, that threw it all to the four winds, that 
wasted these sacred means thus intrusted, and has 
left the great subject of education to chance or to 
the local authorities. The sticklers for state rights, 
and the anti-federal or democratic party, have de- 
nied to the federal government the power and the 
right over education ; and, having the control in the 
councils of the nation, have tied up the hands and 
defeated the intentions of the general government. 
Before this influence was asserted and recognized 
by the American Congress, it had set apart one- 
sixteenth of all the public lands as a fund for pri- 
mary schools within the new states where the lands 
lie. They also gave two townships of land to each 
new state for a university within the same. This 
was probably the commencement of a system that 
by some further plan, had it not been arrested, 
would have embraced the old states also, that were 
equally entitled to their part, on every principle of 



256 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

justice, and might have worked much benefit to 
the great cause of human instruction. This con- 
tracted decision, however, occurred and stopped 
the thing in this partial, unjust, and unfinished 
state, and lost the only chance of doing the great 
work and accomplishing such a mighty purpose. 

The new states who got this landed fund have 
wasted it nearly all. They sold the land thus 
sacredly intrusted to them by virtue of their sove- 
reignty, which felt indignant at the idea of being 
considered a trustee, even for the benefit of their 
own people, and have expended the funds accruing 
therefrom either in ordinary expenses, mad projects 
of improvement, or in the defalcations of their poli- 
ticians and demagogues, who advocated the sale 
and used up the funds as they came into their 
hands. This landed fund, as partial and unjust as 
it was, amounted in the new states to ten millions 
of acres, and might have done much good had it 
been saved. It would have been sufficient to edu- 
cate the whole mass of the population in those 
states for ever. Education now, although of the 
last importance to all free people, is entirely de- 
pendent upon individual and state regulations. 
Some of the states, to their credit be it said — such 
as the New England states, New York, New Jer- 
sey — have created funds, and all the people within 
their borders are really now in the act of receiving 
a proper rudimental education. In the other states 
scarcely any move has been made in it at all, only 
as individual settlements and inclinations prompt 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 257 

to it. In all the new states the population is so 
scattered that no plan of instruction can be suc- 
cessfully applied to them. The Lancastrian moni- 
torial system, as we have said, can only be applied 
with any benefit to a dense population. Then a 
little money can collect and educate all, or rather 
put all in a train to educate one another. A frontier 
man neither appreciates an education, nor is he in 
a condition to avail himself of it, if he wished to 
have his children informed. He has no neighbors, 
or not enough to share with him the expenses ; and, 
as he cannot do it alone, his children grow up 
without any, and are content with the knowledge 
of the gun, the woods, and wild nature, instead 
thereof. One-third, therefore, of the population 
remain in ignorance under this chance-medley sys- 
tem, or no system at all, and are a prey to design- 
ing politicians or demagogues. There can be no 
dereliction of duty in a government at all com- 
parable to this total neglect and abandonment of 
education. As well might we "surrender the great 
principles of liberty, and make up our minds to 
yield up all the benefit of free institutions ; for, 
without intelligence in the people, all is compro- 
mited. It is the first duty of a national govern- 
ment to provide for the education of every indivi- 
dual citizen, so far as the rudiments are concerned, 
and not rest until it be accomplished. It remained 
for these wise statesmen to make the discovery, 
that learning is a dangerous thing in the hands of 
the Federal Government ; and that any system of 

18 



258 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

education might, through it, jeopardize our free 
institutions. Nothing but the grossest ignorance 
or the most wicked designs could have arrived at 
such ultra and unheard-of conclusions. The very 
existence, the self-preservation of all governments, 
would imply the power to educate and enlighten 
the citizens, without any expression in the consti- 
tution to that effect, and all good patriots would so 
take it. This anomalous, this fastidious and crip- 
pled government, however, has set the example of 
totally disclaiming the power, has wasted the great 
fund that nature seemed to furnish her for the pur- 
pose, and now reposes her liberty and her best 
policy upon accident or local exertions in this re- 
spect. A nation should found universities, colleges, 
and lyceums, as well as the primary schools. She 
should collect, in connection with them, libraries, 
apparatus, museums, cabinets, and specimens for 
all branches of literature. She should also have 
galleries of paintings, statuary, and all the fine 
arts ; and also models and samples of the useful and 
mechanic arts, as well as an observatory, botanic 
gardens, and sample farms. When a nation moves 
in these very useful and necessary departments of 
human knowledge, all the citizens lend themselves 
to them, and make it a part of their ambition, not 
only to avail of them but to aid in every way within 
their reach and ability ; and they become centres 
for all valuable collections, and monuments of 
national pride. When a nation provides funds, 
there is certainty in the thing, and all the people 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 259 

repose upon the foundations thus laid. A control- 
ling influence is lit up by such intelligence that 
tempers and directs the great policy of the country, 
and keeps in bounds those wayward politicians and 
designing demagogues that often disturb the good 
order and best interests of society. Political econ- 
omists should not rest one moment until they place 
the education of this people upon a national and 
certain basis. They should cry aloud and cease 
not until some act of Congress be passed that would 
give either the remaining public lands for the pur- 
poses of general instruction, or create a fund in 
some other way that would coyer the whole ground 
and fill up this yawning chasm, this blank space, 
this dangerous vacuum in the public mind. 

If they fail to excite this prostrate giant called 
the Federal Power to action for this purpose, 
then they should travel down, or rather up, to the 
constituent sovereignties, the states and city cor- 
porations, and urge it upon them, as the only re- 
maining chance of benefiting the people and estab- 
lishing systems of instruction. The necessity is 
daily becoming more urgent, since a general suf- 
frage walks forth through the land, and converts 
almost every male into a voter. A general suffrage 
without education is sure ruin to any government. 
It will throw all the available interests of the 
country into the hands of designing demagogues, 
and pervert to base and selfish purposes all their 
resources. Intelligence alone can stay such hands, 
can say, Este, este, profani ! — hence ! touch not the 



260 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

sacred rights of man with polluted hands ! So 
regardless are our citizens of the advantages of 
education, that when vast funds are devised by 
humane men for the purpose, they are perverted 
and wasted, and the best intentions of the deceased 
not only defeated, but such examples held out that 
others are deterred from so devising their funds, for 
fear of abuse. Witness the great Gerard legacy 
to Philadelphia for education, that has been wasted ; 
and the Smithson legacy to the nation, equally 
wasted, or loaned out to demagogues in a way 
either to be lost or not available. In addition to 
the funds provided for schools and the necessary 
preparations, there should be some penalty for not 
using them, and availing of the advantages thus 
held out. No person should be allowed to vote, or 
hold office, or serve on juries, that could not read 
and write ; and an invidious tax might also be laid 
upon such as have property, obliging them to pay 
more than others : their shame and pride might 
also be acted upon by setting up in the public 
places, and having it published also in the journals, 
a list of the names of such as could not read and 
write in each county and town. A set of rewards 
or distinctions of some sort might with advantage 
be provided for such as distinguish themselves in 
the primary schools, and such should be singled 
out and sent up to the colleges or finishing schools 
at the public expense. A stimulus could thus be 
given, not only strong enough to carry all into the 
schools, but to put them upon an effort for the 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 261 

prizes. The Lancastrian monitorial system can 
be applied with less money and more effect to a 
dense population than any other, and should be 
adopted. As far as practicable, too, the Pestalozian 
or natural method should be tried. The natural 
signs of ideas, when used, give a rapid and perfect 
perception of the thing represented. All the phys- 
ical sciences and many branches of mathematics 
can be taught, with great saving of time, by speci- 
mens, museums, and counters or diagrams. A small 
expenditure would fill the lecture or school rooms 
with these aids in the acquisition of ideas. There 
should be no distinction by separate classing of the 
poor and rich in the primary schools; the poor 
scholar, who is educated at the public charge, 
should not know it, nor the others with whom he 
studies, lest he be mortified and depressed, and be- 
come a butt or mark for the others. Much may 
be done by night lectures in all cities and dense 
settlements ; and these lecture rooms, and the lec- 
turers, with the proper apparatus and specimens, 
should be furnished at the expense of the public, 
and examples set by those in office, and those al- 
ready learned, to the laborers, to induce them into 
them. When any system of teaching, well sup- 
ported by the proper illustrations, takes hold on 
the laboring population, they will not fail to attend 
them, and benefit much by them ; and these very 
improving rendezvous take the place of grog-shops, 
gambling, and all sorts of dissipation. 

I think it is entirely practicable to render all 



262 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

the population, including laborers and operatives, 
learned, and even scientific, by the aid of night lec- 
tures with the proper appliances, without taking 
them from their daily avocations, or at all interfer- 
ing with their productive labors. This would pre- 
sent a picture unknown to the world, and realize 
more than man has ever aspired to or hoped for. 
Those great capitalists that are moved by their 
philanthropy enough to leave millions for the pur- 
poses of education, and to enlighten the human 
race, would do well to order lecture rooms to be 
built in some large cities, and filled with libraries, 
and apparatus, and specimens ; and with a fund to 
support the necessary number of lectures on the 
Pestalozian plan, or natural method. They would 
do infinitely more good with a given sum of money 
in that way than any other, and build up in the 
hearts of men a monument that would be more 
imperishable than marble or brass. Had the Gi- 
rard fund of three or four millions, for instance, been 
so directed, it could have planted a lecture room in 
every square of the city, well furnished, and well 
filled with the proper lecturers and appliances. 
Twenty lecture rooms, used every night, would 
embrace all the population of such a city as Phila- 
delphia and its liberties, and move the whole mass 
up to science and a respectable information. The 
ground and a building to hold two thousand per- 
sons, would cost, say $10,000. The library, and 
apparatus, and cabinet of each, would cost, say 
$20,000 ; and a fund, out of the interest of which 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 263 

to pay a lecturer $1000, say $20,000, would be for 
each building, its appliances, and lecturer, $50,000. 
Twenty such establishments, then, would only re- 
quire $1,000,000 to be got up in the complete way. 
Girard's fund, then, would have thus furnished 
Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Baltimore, 
with the means of education in this available way. 
It would be a good idea and a national policy to 
set apart a yard or ground near, or at the seat of 
government, and consecrate it sacredly to the 
monuments of such benevolent persons as devise 
their estates, or give their property for the purpo- 
ses of education, with the appropriate superscrip- 
tions commemorative of the deed. Nothing con- 
nected with this government is so discouraging to 
the cause of liberty, and derogates so much from 
the character for intelligence and high manly feel- 
ing and an exalted patriotism, as the discarding all 
education from the federal government, and throw- 
ing it upo'h chances. Our only appeal now is to 
the states, and there we meet a supineness and a. 
recklessness in regard to it that puts all aback, or 
at least postpones it indefinitely. 

The public glands or national domain in the 
United States should engage the attention of our 
political economists and statesmen. So far they 
have either been wasted, or formed a subject of 
controversy in all of our legislation, that has inter- 
fered much with all true and patriotic movements. 
The new states have set up claims continually, not 
only through their individuals, but as states, that 



264 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

have no regard to justice or equity. No law can 
now be passed by Congress, scarcely, that does not 
involve some question, or some combination, bearing 
upon the public lands. As we have said in the 
preceding chapter, these lands should form a fund 
for a system of education, primary schools, colleges, 
and so forth, that would embrace the whole mass 
of the people. The fund is ample, and would bring 
in a revenue of two million dollars annually. This 
fund is provided by nature, seemingly, for the very 
purpose, and would save any further effort, or any 
burthen of taxation upon the country. The nation 
could do very well without this fund for its ordinary 
wants or revenue, and would have the satisfaction 
of seeing the great plan of human instruction going 
on without feeling the weight of its support. This 
fund might be erected into a sort of annuity yield- 
ing not less than two to three millions, and would 
insure what is of vital importance to all republics. 
The temper of this nation would not favor a tax 
heavy enough to accomplish this great desideratum. 
A Bureau of Education would sound well in the 
departments of government, showing its annual re- 
sults, and setting forth its funds and disbursements. 
A nation is concerned in having every individual 
raised from a state of ignorance to one of light and 
intelligence; to have its voters all citizens, and 
efficient, instead of brutes and imbeciles ; to have 
men come up to the polls to think and understand 
and vote on the true independent principles, not 
be brought up as automatons or brutes by the ac- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 265 

tive and designing demagogues for their own base 
purposes. The states are setting up claims to the 
public lands within their dominions, and threaten the 
seizure of them. This will be done before many 
more years under our broad state-right feeling, ac- 
companied with a contempt for the federal govern- 
ment. A little more demagogueism will do it, and this 
fund be gone forever. This nation cannot stay the 
hands of rapacity when put forth by the sovereign 
power of a state, but will stand by and see it accom- 
plished without gainsaying it. In the present tex- 
ture, and under the present feelings of the states, 
every thing they or any one of them aims at will 
be acquiesced in. Never will this nation move 
against a state, because it has no troops scarcely of 
its own ; and the sympathies of the states will pre- 
vent any state either moving against a rebel or ra- 
pacious state, or furnishing a quota of militia to 
help control her. Unless something be done soon 
with the public lands, they will be lost for all 
useful or available purposes. The danger is great, 
and every year becoming more so, of collisions 
between the federal and state governments ; and 
these public lands will be that bone of contention, 
most likely, that will lead to them. It is therefore 
the duty of our statesmen and political economists 
to turn them into some useful channel, that all 
might abstain from disturbing, because all would 
be benefited. There is nothing of so general an 
interest, and that could be so happily applied to all, 
as some just plan of education. The next best use 



266 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

that could be made of them would be to get up 
some extensive plan of internal improvements, as 
we shall hereafter show. 



CHAPTER XXX, 

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS, THE MAIL, ETC. 

The great interest of internal improvements, 
consisting of canals, rail-roads, common McAdam- 
ized roads, bridge s,ports, light-houses, beacons, and 
defences, are of national concern, and claim the 
attention of all political economists and statesmen. 
That a nation should construct forts, and all sorts 
of fortifications necessary to its defence, is not de- 
nied by any party, not even in this fastidious age. 
We have, therefore, made many such works, and 
perhaps almost as many as are necessary, or as 
we ought to make. We have also gotten up a 
corps of engineers and a military academy, with a 
bureau of surveys, maps, designs, and admeasure- 
ments, of our coast, its depth of water, of our 
heights and levels, and every thing relating to the 
defences of the country and a right understanding 
of its resources. We have also built the proper 
number of light-houses, beacons, buoys, and harbors, 
for the safety of our commerce and navigation. 
We have stopped the good work here, and have 
been rudely arrested by a set of politicians, under 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 257 

the influence of the Jeffersonian Virginia school, 
who are state-right sticklers, and so construe the 
federal constitution as to withhold the power of 
constructing roads, canals, and bridges. It re- 
mained for these wiseacres to discover that it 
would in any way endanger or jeopardize liberty 
or the great principles of freedom, to construct a 
road, a canal, or a bridge ! Such is the pretence, 
however, as absurd as it sounds. The constitution 
expressly gives the power to wage war, establish 
post-routes, and commerce, to all of which the road 
making is indispensable, and if not named, would 
have been necessarily implied ; yet these party and 
unmeaning scruples affect to think differently, and 
say, because it is not named, it is withheld. Any 
thing essential to the very existence and preserva- 
tion of a government, would necessarily run with 
that government as a part of its vital principle, of 
its very existence, and requires not to be given or 
named. So determined now are they in their rigid 
construction, and so strong in the councils of the 
nation, that they not only deny the power, but car- 
ry out the principle, and either stop or prevent any 
work of the kind from being done. A few of the 
states have the funds and wisdom to make such 
works by their own means, and from the impulses 
of their own w^ants ; but these are local works, 
hardly ever national in their character, and lie 
across the great lines that a nation would move in 
rather than run with them. New- York, Massachu- 
setts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland, particu- 



268 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

larly, have done wonders in that way, and some 
of them incurred debts in their zeal too large for 
them, and are either oppressed or discredited by 
them. They have been doing the work of the na- 
tion, and as far as they go have redeemed much 
the character of the country in this respect. The 
other states are in the mud and mire, and have no 
communications or outlets for their produce, except 
such as nature has furnished in some places to their 
hands. 

In the last war with England, it cost more to 
get our armies on the Canada frontier or to New- 
Orleans than the thing could bear; hence, on the 
northern frontier, we were never able to collect a 
force strong enough to take Canada, or even pre- 
vent ber annoying, burning, and plundering of our 
whole frontier. Every barrel of flour cost fifty dol- 
lars, every barrel of pork eighty dollars, and every 
cannon used there twice as much in the transporta- 
tion as the cost of making it. Of the one hundred 
andsixty millions of dollars which the last war cost 
the nation, eighty millions were for transportation 
alone — a sum which would have built rail-roads 
and canals over the whole space twice over. This 
nation has paid enough for the transportation of 
its stores in that war, and before and since, to have 
checkered the whole country with the finest sort 
of internal improvements, roads, bridges, and ca- 
nals ; and if we add the tax additional that pro- 
duce and goods have paid, and had to encounter in 
getting to and from market, it would have amount- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 269 

ed to a sum as large almost as the English debt. 
The mail now almost daily fails to reach its desti- 
nation when it goes South or West, because it has 
to flounder through the mud without either roads 
or bridges to facilitate its passage. New Orleans, 
a most important point as to produce and markets, 
fails to get its mail in winter more than half of the 
time, frequently whole weeks together, at a time 
when the price of her valuable staples hang on a 
variable market. In that market have occurred 
cases where that city has lost money enough for 
the want of knowing the real state of the market 
in time, to have made a road all the way, so as to 
connect her with the East — say five millions in 
one season. On the score of a true and regular 
mail, then, roads are very necessary, indeed almost 
indispensable. General information should prompt- 
ly reach every point of the country, as well as the 
state of the produce and stock markets, and army 
movements. On our long line of frontier, in case 
of invasion, we should be able to throw all sorts of 
supplies and defences to every point with all pos- 
sible rapidity, as well as the information of an ene- 
my's movements. How can this be done without 
roads, canals, bridges, and steamboats 1 What 
sort of a nation is it that folds its hands, and denies 
to itself the right and power to do such things, to 
offer such facilities, to send forward all possible aid, 
and impart the earliest information ? History can- 
not furnish a parallel case of culpable and short- 
sighted forbearance. Such politicians must be un- 






270 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

worthy guardians of the sacred cause of liberty, of 
the invaluable principles of freedom. They de- 
serve to be stricken from their trust, and to lose 
all the boons that God and nature have given to 
them. If we suffer so much in the defences and 
efficiency of our country in war, and in our mail 
operations, for the want of these intercommunica- 
tions, it is still worse in a commercial point of 
view. War is only occasionally in want of such 
things — commerce ever. A stream of commerce 
is always wanting to pour its wealth and comforts 
into the interior, and every day, every hour, en- 
counters these difficulties. 

We, like inconsistent beings as we are, go to 
great expense in inducing a trade or commerce to 
our strand from abroad, and there leave it to find 
its ultimate consuming market in the interior as 
best it can, or not at all in some cases. Our power 
ceases at the strand ; we cannot aid it further. The 
ten millions a year that we expend in inducing it to 
our strand and accumulating it there, by our naval, 
harbor, light-house, beacon, and buoy fixings, is 
worse than lost, unless we render it available after 
that, and aid it in finding the consumers. The ab- 
surdities of our politics, taking into the estimate 
our state-right doctrines, anti-tariff operations, anti- 
improvements, and all the other inconsistencies that 
eternally envelope us and our policy, are more mys- 
terious than the Egyptian Sphinx or the Delphian 
Oracle ; and the motives that inclined our politicians 
to such things are entirely inexplicable on any prin- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 271 

ciples that ordinarily govern men. Our pride, our 
nationality, patriotism, love of glory and honor, 
and even of a rational liberty, seem entirely ex- 
tinct, or some very different feelings would seize on 
us and direct our policies. In this age of improve- 
ment, of development, and amelioration in every 
department of human economy, why do we not 
only stand still, but throw back the whole advance 
of this nation 1 When the world is educating it- 
self, why are we in ignorance? When commerce 
envelopes the whole human family, throws around 
and among them every variety of comfort, and 
every luxury, as well as necessity, why are we 
throwing across its currents these chevaux-de-frises 
of sand and flood, and bars of every sort 1 When 
a creative resource walks forth, and with its sacred 
wand touches into life and existence thousands of 
values that had been long dormant, why do we stay 
the magical and wonderful operations 1 When the 
arts all want the aid of some paternal government 
to foster and cherish them, why are w 7 e a blank 1 
When mankind are condensing into villages and 
settlements, and not only teaching each other, but 
enriching all the social relations, w 7 hy are we scat- 
tering off into the woods and wilds, into Texas, 
Oregon, and the far west, and hiding ourselves 
from all these social enjoyments and sympathies'? 
When manufactures are encouraged the world 
over, and every people trying to supply themselves 
with the elegancies and comforts of life, and form a 
foundation on which to trade and hold intercourse 



272 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

with all the world, why are we clodhoppers, and 
not only suspended in this great field, but depen- 
dent upon and slaves to other nations and people 
who are more alive to their interests 1 Why do 
we not brighten our escutcbeon, hold ourselves 
forth as worthy of the liberty intrusted to our 
hands, and exhibit a people well instructed, well 
clad, well furnished, and proud of their country ; 
instead of warring upon our own institutions, and 
grinding all our character as well as our best inter- 
ests into the very dust 7 Go to England : she is a 
unit in power, by the facility her roads, canals, and 
steamboats give her, and passing rich from her man- 
ufactures. Go to France : she is connecting the 
two seas that she is contiguous to, by roads, and 
canals, and the wine, corn, and manufacturing dis- 
tricts. Go to Germany: the Rhine and the Elbe 
are coming together ; the Baltic and German seas, 
the Adriatic and the Danube, and all are teeming 
forth their interchanges and trade, until Germany 
is at last really one nation, whether emperors, kings, 
or princes govern her. Go even to Russia, where 
lately the slave was tracked in his own snows by 
his chains only : now the Black and the Baltic seas 
are coming together into commercial communion ; 
the Caspian and the Baltic, the latter and the 
White sea ; the whole moving in the great work of 
intercommunications and commercial thrift, and the 
autocrat now playing with railroads instead of hu- 
man life, and delighting in commerce rather than 
human misery and butchery. Why do we stand 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 273 

with folded arms and look on these mighty move- 
ments? 

It is for us above all others to be foremost in 
the race, in such great facilities. A wise politician 
could scarcely conceive of a people, especially one 
pretending to more freedom than any others, and 
one to whom the very palladium of modern liberty 
is intrusted, her very temples consigned, standing 
still, and not only seeing all others outstripping her, 
but doggedly refusing to move at all. A nation 
that, worse than the wagoner who prayed to Her- 
cules, neither helps herself nor is asking others to 
help her. She sees her lights one after another ex- 
tinguished or eclipsed by her rivals, for the want of 
an equal or proper movement. A chance-medley 
people, whose forests shelter them instead of regular 
defences ; whose instincts serve them instead of light 
and information ; who associate with wild animals 
instead of rational beings; and live without wants, 
rather than make and protect thefruitsof their labor, 
the things necessary to refinement and civilization. 
We require rapid movements, we need free and 
certain and available intercourse to understand 
each other's plans, enjoy each other's society, and 
exchange each other's varied and useful products. 
Can rational liberty live in the wilds, where be- 
longs only an unrestrained nature 1 Can freemen 
speak in the boldness of independence, and have 
their voices heard, when hid in remote and unhal- 
lowed places ? The first lesson I would give to a 

19 



274 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

free people, to an independent nation, would be to 
circulate freely, bring every interest and every in- 
dividual together, and give and receive each other's 
ideas and sympathies rapidly, and continually. 
Move in mass, think in concert, and grow strong 
in each other's sympathies. We have one liberty 
to defend, one long line of territory to protect and 
guard, and a very varied commerce to diffuse to 
every part. Let us then enter on a system of in- 
ternal improvement in earnest, depart from those 
illiberal and jealous and confined notions that sus- 
pend our very existence as well as prosperity. Let 
us be a nation worthy of the times, worthy of a free 
and enterprising people, and show to the world an 
example of activity, intelligence, and energy, that 
will call down their admiration upon us, and gain 
for us our own esteem, and that glory and honor 
that are more necessary to republicans than any 
other sort of people. Let us have roads, canals, 
schools, monuments of the arts, galleries for taste 
and excellence, and every thing that would not 
only show us a nation, but preserve us such. It is 
time the parts had yielded to the whole, the states 
to the federal government, as far as is necessary to 
national character and respectability. The states 
will be in contempt, be in broken and scattered 
fragments, as soon as the central power be put 
down. Like the elegant, mirror of the parlor, as 
a whole it reflects all, and multiplies perfect and 
grand images of the scene, but if dashed by rude 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 275 

hands into fragments, each piece does but reflect 
some disordered, disjointed view of the grand 
whole. 

As we have said before, unless we could agree 
to appropriate the landed domain for a great plan 
of education, the next best thing that we could do 
with it would be a plan of improvements that, 
would cover all the ground, aid our war defences, 
our mail transportation, the distribution and diffu- 
sion of our commerce, the carrying off of our large 
agricultural productions, and the bringing us to- 
gether for mutual instruction and sympathy of 
feelings, as a people of the same nation. Facilities 
given to remote settlements to send off their pro- 
ductions, often carry with them a creative power, 
often give value to what possessed none before, 
and increase that of all others. A thousand things 
along the line of railroads or canals, that lay 
without notice or any value, come forth when 
touched by this magic wand into being and availa- 
bility ; citizens often get a shaking up from a 
state of lethargy into which they had fallen, and 
become actively useful and intelligent. Often the 
means of doing some good work, founding some 
useful institutions, are thus awakened and brought 
forth into use. We feel as if we were in the great 
world, and an efficient part of it, when we daily 
are thrown in communication with it, and made to 
act our parts. 

What a beautiful system of roads and canals 
might have been made in connection with the pub- 



276 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

lie lands ! Lines of roads and canals might have 
been pushed into all the new states, and through 
them in all directions ; and after they were finished 
the lands alongside of these lines would have sold 
in all cases for as much more than they did as these 
works cost, and the country thus have had the im- 
provements for nothing. The foresight of political 
economists would have foreseen it, but that of 
demagogues never looks to such advantages. The 
opportunity is lost forever, and the lands wasted, 
or so much gone as to be inadequate to such a plan 
for the perfection of which they were susceptible, 
degrading doctrine of constitutional difficulty, now 
ties up the fund forever, and holds the hands of this 
imbecile government. The states have set up a 
great automaton called the Federal Power, whose 
limbs are clay and whose force is nothing. Like 
the Indian's idol, they mock it, and teach other na- 
tions also to disregard it, and laugh at its awkward 
appearance and helpless condition. Nothing can 
fill up the measure of this nation's destiny but in- 
tercommunications that will bring all the parts to- 
gether, and effectuate that rich commerce that such 
varied and valuable productions would naturally 
sustain. Nothing can amalgamate this people, 
make them united, and their government a unity 
in its effect, but such facilities. 

The post-office department is entitled to all con- 
sideration from statesmen and political econo- 
mists, as bearing upon its wings the information 
that must concern the whole, and summoning all 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 277 

to obey the same impulses in danger, and feel the 
same interest in the grand routine of daily duties 
and daily operations. If a people be highly educa- 
ted, and intelligent enough to read much, the mail 
furnishes the pabulum of this very laudable appe- 
tite, and may be regarded as the handmaid of edu- 
cation as well as politics. The presses are teem- 
ing now with cheap and useful matter, that ought 
to reach every part in the greatest cheapness and 
with all possible despatch. Novelty, that seizes 
so strongly on the mass of mankind, ought to be 
made available whilst the curiosity, the natural 
manifestation of it, be active and fresh. Staleness 
in reading matter blunts much the appetite for 
reading. It is in commerce and politics, however, 
that the mail is most important. A free people 
should have the freest and most rapid intercourse 
with one another ; and all the parts, even the most 
remote settlements, ought to know what the centre 
and every other district is doing, and how they feel 
on all subjects and measures. The post is more 
important to a free people, to republicans, than to 
the inhabitants of a monarchy or of a despotic 
government. In the former all correctives must 
move from the people ; in the latter, they have but 
little to do with any operation of the nation, and 
it suffices such government to convey orders only 
to the subject. There is something vivifying and 
exciting in a rapid mail communication to free 
people, that keeps alive the full tide of patriotic 
feelings, and modifies them as the exigencies of the 



278 NOTBS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

country require. When any thing retards or ob- 
structs the mail, there should be a power and a 
fund to act immediately and remove the difficulty. 
Nothing would argue so much a defect in the poli- 
cy of a nation, a carelessness in the important ar- 
rangements necessary to the efficiency of a govern- 
ment, as a neglect of the mail communications. 
This nation is denied, as we have said, the power 
of constructing roads, or building a bridge, no mat- 
ter how essential to this movement. Whole quarters 
of the United States, particularly in the new states, 
and in the slave districts, are without roads neces- 
sary to a regular mail. New Orleans, even with 
invaluable productions, sometimes fails to get a 
mail for weeks at a time, as we said, and its great 
market all the time groping in the dark, and often 
losing money by buying and selling at hazard. 
This renders a people discontented, and sinks the 
government into contempt with them, or in their 
estimation. They have, consequently, less patriot- 
ism and regard for the institutions of their country, 
finding them thus unavailable, and liable to per- 
verted constructions. Can any thing but con- 
tempt attend on a power that cannot make a road, 
must submit to chance the movements necessary 
to a war, to the mails, to that intercourse so essen- 
tial to comfort and unity, and to a varied and rich 
commerce ? The people are taxed more to get 
their supply of goods to the consuming points after 
they reach our shores, than bringing them from 
Europe or the Indies. The mail, in order to get 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 279 

along over such roads, has to charge two or three 
prices for a letter or newspaper. It costs more 
money to get a letter from Buffalo to New York, 
than it does a barrel of flour ; more to get a letter 
from New York to New Orleans than a barrel of 
pork; because the sea is open for commerce, not 
for the mail, which has to take the mud. In the 
last war the commanding general at New Orleans 
was enforcing martial law, and imprisoning civil 
officers a month after peace was declared, because 
the mail could not bring the intelligence. It is 
indicative of a good government to find its commu- 
nications perfect, its mail certain and rapid, and 
its tribunals of justice prompt and independent. 
Then the people feel together, act together, and 
have each other's sympathies and support. 

The most alarming thing for all true patriots in 
regard to the post department is the deep and open 
corruption that runs through it. This wide-spread 
facility is seized by the corrupt and designing to ope- 
rate upon and influence the great mass of ignorance 
that constitutes, in all countries, the large majority 
of the population. The party in power, through the 
mail, wields 20,000 franks in the deputy postmasters, 
and 1,000 others arising from the other departments 
and offices of the government, and can use them 
all for party purposes, because, having the appoint- 
ment of all these, it can insure their subserviency. 
Tell me not that this will not be done. It has been 
done all the time within the last twelve years, is 
done now, and will be done so long as dishonesty 



280 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

rules the land. Could mathematics run through all 
this complexity of corruption and undue influence, 
I believe it might be proved that, within the time 
named, a certain party have maintained themselves 
in office, and insured the succession of their minions, 
more by the aids of these corruptions of the mail 
than all other circumstances put together. Into 
what part of the United States do we go, even 
the darkest corners thereof, without seeing the mail 
delivering whole stage loads of this party, one- 
sided, lying matter, in the shape of newspapers, let- 
ters, extras, and dictations of some kind, all franked, 
or to be franked, and distributed among the people? 
Whole packets are daily sent to deputy postmas- 
ters, who have their standing orders to put names 
on and distribute each number to some person in 
their neighborhood, ignorant enough to be influ- 
enced or vain enough to be flattered by this sort of 
attention. These officers are taxed a commission on 
their salaries, first, to frank these lying journals, and 
then their honesty taxed to give distribution to them. 
It never occurred to our Washingtons, Adamses, Ma- 
disons, Monroes, and such single-hearted honest men, 
that the 20,000 postmasters were to be converted 
into corrupt tools of party, as well as their offices; 
swear allegiance, act to dictation, and be taxed in 
their little salaries besides, to insure the continu- 
ance of their masters and themselves in power ! 
Yet such has been the case. No honest man would 
believe the hundredth part of the facts, if truly 
stated, regarding the corruption of this department; 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 281 

they exceed all previous conceptions, and would 
appal the honest citizens if made visible. 

What is the remedy for this crying evil, this 
fully-fledged corruption ? I answer, that all honest 
patriots who reflect on this subject say, that the 
nation is lost without a reform that reaches the 
very source of the corruption. The franking pri- 
vilege, as useful as it might be made, must be dis- 
continued, and denied not only to the 20,000 post- 
masters, but to our public officers, except the Pre- 
sident. The tenures of the offices of the deputy 
postmasters must be made permanent, or during 
honest behavior, and placed beyond the power of 
not only the head of that department to remove, but 
the President himself; the interchanges of news- 
paper editors be prohibited or limited, and all use- 
less matter that now goes free be either thrown 
out or made to pay. That all the matter that goes 
by mail be made to pay in advance, and all post- 
age put down to the lowest possible rate that pro- 
mises to pay. Nothing short of the above regula- 
tions will correct this hugest of all corruptions, or 
cleanse the Augean stable of political bribery and 
filth. Some writer has said, " Give me the making 
of the ballads, the people will sing, and I will gov- 
ern them;" and I say, give me the mighty lever- 
age of 20,000 active tools, with their 20,000 franks, 
and I will govern them with much more certainty. 
Honest newspapers or opposing journals, and fre- 
quently letters on business, are kept back, to make 
room for the mass of corruption that is claiming 



282 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

distribution for political effect. These 20,000 
agents are placed in the very best positions for 
popular effect; and their own voices not only raised 
in favor of their dishonest employers, but backed 
by these innumerable, one-sided, lying letters and 
journals. Were all the matter thus availed of 
charged full postage, it would double the revenues 
of that department. Hence treble postage is 
charged on the honest citizen to enable the depart- 
ment to wield all this corruption, and obliges hon- 
est citizens to employ private mails, at one-third 
of the price, to insure to them certainty in the deli- 
very and keep them out of this corrupt contact. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

REPRESENTATION, PUBLIC OPINION, SUFFRAGE. 

Governments are very much dependent upon 
public opinion, which is all-powerful when enlight- 
ened and free to act, with the facilities of rapid 
interchanges. It becomes, then, a capital object to 
render this opinion as intelligent as possible, and 
as prompt as any circumstances can render it. In 
Europe, now under monarchies, and many of them 
absolute, public opinion walks forth, and not only 
stays the hands of the rulers from violence and 
injustice, but directs their acts to the great pur- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 283 

poses of the general good. The representation in 
Europe, constructed as it is, must be nominal, is 
very partial and defective, and, if it acted accord- 
ing to its constituent base, would be one-sided and 
unjust. Fortunately for those countries, an enlight- 
ened public opinion steps forward and supplies this 
glaring defect in the representation, and points so 
strongly and steadily to the real interests of those 
countries, that it must be obeyed, and does really 
control the minds of the rulers, and direct their 
policies and acts. All that this public opinion 
needs to render it efficient is to be intelli- 
gent, and for the citizens to hold rapid commu- 
nications with one another, in every part of their 
own nations, and with other countries. England 
and France are proverbially under the influence of 
public opinion, which corrects the defects in a great 
degree of their representation. Prussia, and Aus- 
tria, and the German States, although absolute in 
the construction of their governments, have become 
just and paternal by force of public opinion, and 
are now almost patterns of all that is just, wise, 
and efficient in governments. The high system of 
schools, and the broad principles of justice that are 
now a part of the very foundations of those coun- 
tries, furnish some substitutes for a legislative re- 
presentation and chambers. All the ameliorations 
nearly that the world is now making are from the 
impulses of public opinion. All interests become 
safe, and perfect guarantees spring up against any 
injustice or violence offered to persons and pro- 



284 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

perty, and repose mankind on this everlasting 
foundation. The English parliament and the 
French chambers are in their very basis so defec- 
tive that, but for public opinion, the crown could 
control them and convert them into tools of power. 
They dare not do it, however, nor suborn them to 
act contrary to the general interest, fearful of this 
master of all, public opinion ; which, identified with 
the general interests, steps forth and says to the 
monarch, " so far shalt thou go, and no farther," 
and has to be obeyed. Public opinion removed the 
Catholic disqualifications, and corrected the worst 
features of the rotten boroughs in England, and is 
now laboring to do away the oppression of the 
corn laws and the tithes, or so modify them as to 
make them less unjust. Public opinion is not con- 
fined in the old world to the civilized districts only; 
it is penetrating the barbarous and despotic regions 
of Russia, and is reaching the very palace of the 
Mussulman. The autocrat dares not disregard it, 
dares not sport with the lives of his subjects, nor 
do flagrant or whimsical acts of injustice. The 
Grand Turk finds his account in some observance 
of justice, some amelioration of old forms, some 
relaxation of the intolerant pretensions so long 
acted upon. 

I regard an enlightened public opinion as less 
liable to err, and abetter safeguard for human rights 
and general interests, than a defective representa- 
tion based on improper ratios, or constituted by that 
broad general suffrage that is under the influence of 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 285 

party. A representation based on the rotten bor- 
ough system, if it acts apart from public opinion, 
is sure to be subsidized by the aristocracy ; and the 
one based on a general suffrage that is brought up 
to the polls by the designing, is sure to disregard the 
better opinions of the citizens, and co-operate with 
those who constitute it for selfish and corrupt pur- 
poses. This last sort of representation is harder 
to control than any other, because it feels secure on 
this broad basis of general suffrage, and, wielding 
it, puts at defiance legitimate public opinion, and 
boldly delights in injustice and selfishness. Instead 
of the ignorant, the unsubstantial, and the foreign- 
ers, without any hold on the country or interest in 
it, that our demagogues and designing politicians 
now marshal at the polls, there should be voters 
who, from their own impulses of patriotism and 
substantial interest, would sustain the great policies 
of the nation. How are these to be insured and 
made to prevail ? I answer, in no other way than 
by confining the suffrage to the intelligent and 
substantial of the nation. Experience now tells 
us, in a language too plain to be mistaken, that the 
suffrages of any nation must rest upon a property 
qualification, in order to insure prosperity and na- 
tional honor. Such voters would send forth the 
proper sort of representatives, and support those 
policies and enactments calculated to advance the 
country — not party designs. Party spirit then would 
be hushed, unworthy and dishonest motives ban- 
ished our legislative halls, and views of high na- 



28G NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

tional interest all the time uppermost. The strug- 
gle for the loaves and fishes, the odious and corrupt 
doctrine that " to the victors belong the spoils," 
would be scouted from our councils and cabinets, 
and give place to a pure patriotism that would 
breathe forth its aspirations for the public good. 
I would feel that all was safe, if I could see an en- 
lightened public opinion lifted above the broad and 
corrupt basis of a general suffrage, and taking the 
direction of affairs. It would then speak as loudly 
at the polls as in the legislatures and councils, and 
bear its corrective in a way to be available. 

How is public opinion to be enlightened enough 
in this country to be an efficient guide and correc- 
tive? We have, as said before, been all the time 
spreading our thin texture to the far west, until we 
have no tenacity, no sympathies in common, no 
efficient education. Our national government, we 
have seen, has eschewed all interference or control 
of education, and left it to chance or the states ; 
and no system can reach our people, scattered as 
they are in the wilds, and instruct them. The very 
mails fail to find them in a way regular enough to 
impart to them the proper information, in the prompt 
way necessary to connect their movements with the 
business operations of the day. People are as much 
or more enlightened by rapid interchanges of 
thought, and the action of their sympathies upon 
each other, as by any system of education. 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 287 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

STATE DEBTS, CITY DEFENCES, AND LICENSES TO SELL 

SPIRITS. 

We are now in a condition of great distress and 
even discredit from our state debts. The policy that 
incurred them, though impolitic and much to be de- 
precated, is not the question now ; they exist, and 
how to get rid of them becomes the all-absorbing 
topic for our politicians. In nearly half of the 
cases, the expenditures have accomplished no good 
purpose, and the debts too large to be wielded by 
the states that incurred them ; hence the interest 
on nearly half lies unprovided for, and in some cases 
the debts themselves have been repudiated, greatly 
to the disgrace of the country. Although the con- 
stitution prohibits the states issuing bills of credit, 
(and what can be a stronger bill of credit than a 
state bond or state stock?) yet the debts are in- 
curred, and the disgrace, like the darts that all the 
beasts in the Zodiac point to the good man in the 
front page of almanacs, impales our federal govern- 
ing ind wounds its tenderest parts. The capi- 
talists abroad look upon us as one government, and 
are not expected to make the distinction between 



288 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

state sovereignties and our general government ; 
scarcely do the nations of Europe, much less the 
individual creditors, make such a distinction. An 
obligation seems to rest on our federal government, 
from the necessity of the case, to step forward and 
wipe off these unconstitutional and foul tracks of 
the local sovereignties, and redeem the nation from 
the disgrace. Not only the character of any good 
and proper government wants to be vindicated 
from all such reproaches, but more especially these 
United States, who are held as a sort of sample 
government, a sort of last test of the great princi- 
ples of republicanism. If a charge of unfairness 
and shuffling should be fastened upon us, as is likely 
to be the case, it will not only injure us, but the 
great cause of free government in which we have 
embarked, and give occasion for the enemies of hu- 
man rights to triumph. The precedents that Eng- 
land, France, and the United States, have establish- 
ed towards Mexico and the South American repub- 
lics, that of making the government responsible for 
the debts, defalcations, and even spoliations of the 
subject, and recognized in the Beaumarchais case 
that entered into our arrangement with France, go 
to show the right and the inclination both, of the 
governments to which the creditors appertain, to 
interfere in the case, and make it the subject of 
a negotiation, and even war if necessary. Our 
state debts may on that principle cost us a war, 
and that would create a debt of twice their amount. 
Our federal government certainly finds itself in a 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 289 

very unpleasant and dishonorable dilemma on this 
subject. When asked to assume these debts she 
answers, that they are state debts, that those states 
are sovereign and beyond her control, and that she 
has nothing to do with it. The foreign government 
then travels down to the indebted state and under- 
takes to force it to pay, when, as soon as any pre- 
parations are made to oblige her to pay, the federal 
government interferes, espouses her cause, and pro- 
tects from reprisal the indebted state. This looks 
very much like collusion, and proves how hollow 
and fraudulent in its results the declaration that she 
had nothing to do with it really w^as. This sort of 
juggling will not satisfy the world, nor vindicate 
the character of our government from fraud and 
dishonor, for there really seems to be both in the 
case. 

The revenues of this government are now teem- 
ing, and promise an overflowing treasury for years 
to come. This shows an ability, and places the 
case upon grounds without any excuse. Two 
hundred millions of stock issued by the fede- 
ral government, bearing an interest of three and a 
half per cent., would take up all these disgraceful 
debts, which, making only seven millions a year of 
interest, would not be felt, and would not even 
absorb our surplus revenue. Our politicians ought to 
wake up to this disgrace, and labor to overcome the 
action of that party that does not feel the dishonor 
or the necessity of having a government free from 
reproach or charges of fraud, and a want of high and 

20 



290 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

honorable sentiments. For the character of repub- 
lics this should be done, as well as to aid the great 
cause of liberty ; like Caesar's wife, they should 
not only be pure, but unsuspected. 

City defences. Another subject has arisen since 
our cities have grown so much, and are filled with 
reckless foreigners and mobs, as to the best and 
most effectual remedy for the growing disorders 
and violences that prevail in them. The substance, 
and all the interests both of persons and property, 
are threatened by the lawless, the idle and vicious. 
So far all the police established in our cities seems 
to fail on the great occasions of mobs and riots. 
The Mayor and his staff, backed by a meagre con- 
stabulary, become powerless, and are pushed aside 
and disregarded in such affrays. Let us first in- 
quire into the root of the evil, and then discuss 
some remedy for it. The primary cause of the 
whole disorder is found in the general suffrage that 
prevails in the city elections. All vote that are 
found in the city, or have been a few months there, 
without any interest or hold on the community. 
The vagabonds, the loafers, the paupers, and des- 
perate strangers brought over and turned loose upon 
the town, are all voters, and are embodied and 
brought up to the polls by the designing and office 
seekers ; and by the aid of such votes not only put 
in office, but supported in their ultra measures 
against the property of the citizens, and in favor of 
this class of voters. They dare not do their duty 
when it bears upon vice and idleness, because they 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 291 

are dependent upon them for their office, and must 
compromise with all disorder for the same reasons. 
This unprincipled and mutual support between the 
office-holders and voters is the cause of all the dis- 
order, arrests every attempt to correct it, and 
laughs at the ultimate tendency of the thing and 
the disgrace incident thereto. In our cities all the 
guarantees for the safety of persons and property 
seem to be lost, and a sad foreboding for the future 
nestles gloomily in the hearts of all property-hold- 
ers and good citizens. 

Some hope has been lit up lately from the ac- 
tion of the organized militia companies that exist 
in our cities, and a vain belief entertained that they 
would be adequate to the purposes of good order. 
This idea is fallacious, because most of those com- 
panies have a fellow feeling with the mob, as was 
manifest in Philadelphia; and wiiere, if they do 
act, so much odium and bitterness attend it that 
the militia are run down, their persons and proper- 
ties endangered, both secretly and publicly; and 
instead of getting the thanks of the community, 
and being regarded as patriots, are rendered so un_ 
popular that they have to abandon their organiza- 
tion. Most of the individuals in those companies 
belonging to the lower classes have quit them from 
fellow feeling with the mob ; another portion, 
through fear of their popularity, and future pros- 
pects of ambition ; which leaves only a few large 
property-holders, altogether inadequate to the pur- 
poses of defence against such odds. Another hope 



292 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

rested upon the idea that cities would come to the 
necessity of employing a standing army or police 
strong enough to keep order. This, too, is falla- 
cious, because the persons who generally compose 
mobs have a majority of voters, and will take care 
to put in such officers as will not take any such 
strong measures against them ; for as well might 
you expect the vicious and reckless to punish 
themselves directly, as to do it indirectly, through 
the officers that they create and control. The only 
remedy, then, is in correcting the elective franchise, 
and taking away the right of suffrage from the un- 
substantial and unsettled. Let the substance take 
care of itself at the polls, and the good order and 
justice that appertain to men of substance and 
such as are permanently settled, will be a guar- 
antee for the safety of persons, and insure the 
proper administration of justice. The mayor and 
councils should hold their offices longer, be more 
independent, and have the power to inquire into 
the means of living of every individual in the corpo- 
ration. They should compel every individual to ac- 
count for his or her mode of living and movements, 
and to allow none to remain in idleness and vice. 
The case is one of crying necessity, and unless a 
change be put in train, all the property in our cities 
will become jeopardized, all persons unsafe, capi- 
tal and investments avoid them, and all business 
be affected in them. No hope arises from the na- 
tional government, that has no troops to spare, and 
so many state-right and constitutional questions 






NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 293 

to be settled before it acts, that it would be too 
late to prevent destruction. 

Licenses to sell spirits. In these days of temper- 
ance and the good cause that is trying to save man- 
kind from their own follies and bad habits, all aids 
should be given to them by our laws and authori- 
ties. We have now light and experience enough 
to decide, without any sort of question, against al- 
lowing or licensing the sale of spirituous liquors 
in any retail way. There is no question in the 
minds of the thinking part of the community, but 
that all our disorders and outbreaking vices are the 
results of drink and drunkenness. Since then the 
majority of the worth and the best interests of the 
country are pointing to and denouncing this habit as 
most ruinous to the morals and property of the 
country, why not stop, by legislative enactments, 
its open and overwhelming course ? What stays 
the hands of our state legislatures, and the heads 
of our corporations, from putting an immediate stop 
to it by withholding all licenses to retail spirituous 
liquors 1 The general suffrage here speaks also, and 
having the votes, forbids our legislators and officers 
from acting as the interests of the country require, 
because so many worthless voters are in the habit 
of drinking, that they by their clamor, zeal, and 
numbers, deter those dependent upon such votes 
from all attempts at a prohibition of the evil. Most 
of the disorders that are fastened upon the coun- 
try, as well as all the evils threatened, depend for 
their support on this principle. Our public opin- 



29't NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

ion, then, cannot be very influential or prompt in 
controlling either the elections or legislativee n- 
actments thus scattered, thus ignorant, and thus 
defeated by an unworthy suffrage. We were 
met at the very entrance into national existence 
by this scattering condition, by a w T ant of education 
and sympathy among the people, and this utter 
prostitution of the sacred elective franchise, which 
prevented all unity of action, and all singleness of 
purpose, and implanted the seeds of political cor- 
ruption in our very bosoms. Suffrage conceded is 
gone forever, because it can only be called back 
by the ballot boxes or a revolution ; the former, 
being the majority, will not vote a disfranchise- 
ment of themselves, and revolutions wipe out with 
blood and despotism in such a case. 

A perfect representation requires to be based 
on just ratios of population, and the substance of 
the land. Without both of these elements it is 
liable to be controlled either by the aristocracy or 
the corruption of demagogues. Public opinion, 
however enlightened, weighs naught with the rab- 
ble of a general suffrage, which glories in bearing 
down all before it of worth or excellence. A rep- 
resentation rightly constructed is the best, perhaps 
the only guarantee, for the safety of persons and 
property, and constitutes the very foundation of all 
safe and free government. This is the true palla- 
dium of liberty, guards from defilement her sacred 
shrines, and stands man forth the free and noble 
being the God of nature intended him to be ; 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 295 

claiming to govern himself. Constitutions go for 
nothing under the angry or interested passions of 
men; charters are a mockery without this sup- 
port, and the concessions of the rulers of mankind 
as frail as their breath that granted them. A rep- 
resentation based on the worth, the intelligence 
and substance of the land, stands forward the friend 
of human rights, superior to aristocracy, above the 
gusts of party feeling, and true to the lirm founda- 
tion upon which it rests. It cannot become cor- 
rupt, for its source is too pure, and if it errs, a re- 
currence to the same pure source, the ballot boxes, 
corrects all its aberrations, and keeps it identified 
with the people. Our representation has sundry de- 
fects too deeply seated to be corrected, because 
coeval with the government, and stamped in its 
very origin upon it by the sovereignties of these 
states : I mean that construction of the Senate, 
which gives to the small old states and the weak 
and crude new ones equal power with the rich and 
populous ones, and the clause which allows three- 
fifths of the slaves to vote. These two provisions 
interfere witli all just ratios, and all first principles 
of justice and right, but are a part of us, and must 
remain, because the peace and harmony of the con- 
federation require it. With such defects our rep- 
resentation calls still louder for an enlightened 
public opinion to counteract and control them, and 
prevent any undue use being made of them. If our 
representation, besides bearing in its bosom these 
constitutional defects, be corrupted in its very 



296 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

source by this general suffrage, and perverted into 
base, grovelling, and interested channels, instead 
of its being this guarantee of safety, this palladium 
of liberty we speak of, it then subserves party pur- 
poses, and becomes a pretext and cover under which 
the designing sap all resources, destroy all rational 
liberty, and degrade all our institutions, until the 
nation, without character or honor, or any available 
policy, sinks into contempt. In all countries where a 
general suffrage rakes up and embraces the worth- 
less, the unsubstantial, and the ignorant, a set of de- 
signing politicians never fail to control them, and 
bring them up to the polls to carry all the elec- 
tions, and through them secure to themselves the 
influence in the legislatures. A feeling is soon lit 
up in this class against all the wealth, intelligence, 
and refinement in the country, which they are 
taught to brand as aristocrats and proud, and a 
total separation takes place very much to the inju- 
ry of both. The patronage extended to, and the 
influence exerted upon, the ignorant lower classes, 
by the wealthy, refined, and well-mannered, would 
be greatly beneficial if nothing stood in the way, 
would soften their manners, inform their minds, 
and render them every way better ^citizens and 
more happy. All that is lost by letting them in 
to the polls, as well as the best policies of the 
nation ; and instead thereof a morose feeling, a se- 
cret hatred, and an unrelenting war waged upon 
the worth and even property of the nation. Agra- 
rian views, political corruption, the success of dem- 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 297 

agogues, and the loss of all true patriotism and na- 
tional honor follow in the train, until all is lost, 
abused, or perverted. Give us a proper suffrage, 
a sound representation, and an enlightened public 
opinion, and all will not only be safe but prosper- 
ous and happy. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

NEW STAPLES, SILK, INDIGO, GRAPE, OLIVE, MORE 
SUGAR AND WOOL, MADDER AND WOAD ETC., AND 
AMELIORATIONS IN AGRICULTURE. 

We have spoken of agriculture and its produc- 
tions in a general way, and how they would be 
affected by a tariff. We will here show how it 
can be extended, ameliorated, and ornamented. 
Political economy ought never to lose sight of this 
real basis of the world's prosperity and support. 
The proper discriminations should be made of the 
different sorts of staples and things within the ca- 
pacity of a country to grow, and encourage by pro- 
tection or bounties such as tend to enrich the coun- 
try and vary its productions the most. Small in- 
ducements often would introduce a. new and valu- 
able culture, when there is spare labor, and a soil 
and climate suitable for it, and it would not inter- 
fere with other cultures. Variety in agriculture 



298 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

should be aimed at, as apt to hit the markets, and 
is nearly as important in this department as in 
manufactures. In such a varied product there are 
more chances for a profit, nationally speaking, and 
more certainty of some available export. We 
have already much variety and richness in our 
agricultural productions, as well as great volume, 
brought about by individual exertions which count 
us largely. We will now undertake to show what 
other cultures we might introduce with great ad- 
vantage, and to the relief of others that are over- 
charged. I have already alluded to the silk cul- 
ture, and proved that it is admirably adapted to 
most of the United States, and calculated to bring 
into value and productiveness the labor of women 
and children without abstracting them from their 
dear homes, and that it will leave all the strong 
male labor for the out-door operations on the farm. 
A little bounty or a high protecting tariff would 
do this much sooner, and in a very few years give 
us one of the most valuable and elegant staples in 
the world. The product might be made to amount, 
in a year or two, to twenty million pounds of silk, 
worth forty to fifty million dollars' to the country. 
Two acres, as we have said, are enough to grow 
the trees upon to feed worms enough to produce 
fifty pounds of raw silk, and six weeks the time 
required to feed the worms. Five hundred thou- 
sand families engaged in the United States grow- 
ing silk, at fifty pounds to each family, amounts 
to twenty-five million pounds of silk, which is 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 299 

more than England and all the North of Europe 
want. 

We want also many articles necessary to our 
manufactories, such as indigo, madder, and woad, 
all of which grow well in our country, and for all 
which we have a plenty of spare labor. We re- 
quire more wool too, and of a greater variety, suit- 
able for blankets, stuff goods, and fine shawls, as 
well as clothes. To arrive at this variety, a tariff 
should encourage it enough to warrant the impor- 
tation of all the sorts of sheep and goats, and the 
Peruvian animals. We do not make sugar enough 
for our own consumption by more than one half, 
and should encourage labor into that production. 
We have soil and climate enough to produce up to 
the home market, if rightly encouraged, and there- 
by much relieve the cotton which is so much over- 
done. We consume largely of fruits, wine, and 
oils, and have large districts of poor sandy or rocky 
territory fitted for nothing else, that would admira- 
bly suit those cultures, and thus render them of 
some avail. Let us now see what we might save 
annually by cultivating these things — say in silk 
ten million dollars, in wool four millions, in sugar 
four millions, in wines four millions, in fruit and oil 
two millions, in dye-stuffs one million, all of which 
would amount to twenty-five million dollars made 
annually, or saved, which is the same thing. This 
vast saving too would not be at the expense of 
any other production, but greatly to the relief of 
all, as all are overdone, and could well spare labor. 






300 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

Under the idea of ameliorations in agriculture, 
we would encourage, by protection and bounties, 
the importation of all fine and useful animals, from 
which to breed and improve our stock ; for a fine 
animal eats no more, hardly as much, as a bad one. 
Sample farms should be got up in every part of the 
United States, under the protection of the federal 
or state government, and made the depositories of all 
improvements, in such a way that all might see by 
inspection the benefits of any new or useful inven- 
tion. A good system of manuring becomes of na- 
tional concern, and should be aided by the encour- 
agement of the importation of guano, lime, gyp- 
sum, bones, poudrette, and all such highly available 
stimulants and aids in the productions of the soil, 
and rewards offered for the discovery or compound- 
ing of these things at home. A proper system of 
manures would arrest that process of exhaustion 
that is going on annually to an alarming extent in 
the southern portions of the United States, and 
enable the country to put on a cheerful, improving 
appearance, instead of the blank exhaustion, gul- 
lies, and dilapidation, that now shock the mind of 
the true patriot. Another good effect would flow 
from a system of manuring that would arrest ex- 
haustion : that of preventing our people emigrating 
so widely, and scattering themselves so inefficiently 
in the west, and thereby losing all the advantages 
to society and improvements attendant on more 
dense settlements. Much may be done for the good 
health and productiveness of a country, to have it 




NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 301 

well drained by the proper ditches, and secured by 
proper embankments from the inundations of the 
rivers. This is often too great an undertaking for 
individuals, as long lines of ditches and embank- 
ments extending through several districts are to be 
constructed, and rivers straightened. Such things 
should be done by the proper engineers, under laws 
of the government, or charters granted to the pro- 
per persons. Draining a country not only renders 
it more healthy, which is all important, but pre- 
vents too much moisture, and those swarms of in- 
sects that destroy all our fruit and annoy our 
persons so much. 

Our climate is subject to such great extremes 
of heat and cold, and sudden in its transitions from 
the one to the other, that it becomes very trying on 
the health and constitutions of our people. The 
government should look to that, and provide for a 
suitable clothing to meet these extremes. A warm, 
cheap, woollen covering is all important to our la- 
borers that are exposed, such as flannels, blankets, 
bear-skin, swansdown, or fearnought cloths, which 
should be established beyond all necessity of looking 
abroad for these things. Since our laborers began 
to use more flannel in their clothing and next to 
their skins, they are more healthy This indispen- 
sable article is still too dear, as well as all the 
others that we have named, and should be protect- 
ed enough to insure their being made in the coun- 
try, and as cheap as possible from our own compe- 
tition. Our people then would not suffer so much 



302 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

from consumptions, inflammatory attacks, and ca- 
tarrhs. Encouragement should also be given by 
premiums, and so forth, to induce warmer houses to 
be built. Stone or brick would be much warmer 
than the thin, wooden shells that we now build, 
within which we are chilled into colds and ill 
health every winter. The New England popula- 
tion do not show their usual shrewdness in this re- 
spect, in removing the material nature gave to them, 
fine stone, from the very foundations where they 
set their shells of wood houses. This wood, too, 
often costs money, and requires to be brought from 
a great distance ; whereas the stone occupies the 
ground, and is in the way of this factitious build- 
ing which they resort to. 

There are some cultures that in their nature 
scarcely ever fail, and for that reason are available 
to all wise and regular governments. I will in- 
stance the Irish potato crop in Europe. Before 
this culture became common in the English domin- 
ions in Europe, they leaned mainly upon the wheat 
crop for their support. Any thing happening to 
this single crop the whole population suffered, and 
the poor intensely, from the rise that would take 
place at such times. With the wheat crop there 
was but a single chance, and if a very wet or very 
dry season prevailed, or insects, or rust, this crop 
was so affected that it became jeopardized ; and 
the poor, with all the precaution of opening the 
ports to grain, would frequently suffer much and 
long. The nation was often impoverished and its 



NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 303 

specie drawn away to buy corn to save its people 
from starving. The potato was introduced, chang- 
ed the whole face of the thing, and saved the nation 
from scarcely any future suffering; for this being 
a certain crop, not affected by moisture, or rust, or 
insects — the great enemies of the wheat — was 
always ready with its cheap and abundant supply 
of a good substitute for bread, to relieve the great 
mass of the people. The best writers now admit 
that in England, Ireland, and Scotland, the potato 
relieves from the consumption of wheat bread 
three-fourths of the whole population each and 
every year ; and when the wheat crop fails, seven- 
eighths of the population consume potatoes. No 
scarcity then can produce much, if any, suffering, 
because the better classes then need only lean the 
heavier upon the potato crop. Two chances are 
thus given in the year for food : the one a winter 
or spring crop — wheat, barley, rye, and oats; and 
the other, a»fall crop of the potatoes. The one or 
the other is sure to hit, and often both. Nothing 
lias gone so far to keep down into quiet and good 
order the whole population of the north of Europe, 
as the potato culture. When a people are mad, or 
rather infuriated, with hunger, they stop at nothing, 
but break down all before them. Bayonets and 
muskets, or even cannon, offer no terrors to the 
starving ; they rush into all and every danger after 
food, and not only despoil those who hoard it, but 
war upon all wealth and plenty. The good order 
then of society, the morals of a people, the very 



304 NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

safety and existence of a government, depend upon 
the certainty of food, if not upon its quality. Po- 
litical economy ought to hail this culture, this good, 
and wholesome, and palatable, and order-producing 
vegetable, as a blessing to the human family, and 
one of the surest supports of a good government. 
Could the introducer of the potato culture be 
known, all mankind should rush forth and erect a 
monument to him, as one of the very best and 
greatest benefactors to man. 

We in this country have, all the time, two 
chances for a crop : the Indian corn, buckwheat, 
and potatoes, are summer and fall crops, along with 
the thousands of vegetables that then nourish; and 
the wheat, rye, oats, and barley, which are winter 
or spring crops; — between the two chances we 
have hardly ever a scarcity of magnitude enough 
to lead to suffering. The supply of food has been 
all the time a very certain thing in this country, 
and none of our disorders or irregularities are owing 
to that cause. Our politicians ought to encourage 
this diversity of chances and of crops all the time, 
and if individual inclination be not enough, other 
inducements ought to be offered. Our agricultural 
societies, too, should urge the thing in every pos- 
sible way, and write articles in the journals, giving 
reasons for it, and offering premiums, if any one 
should drop behind and need it. 

FINIS. 









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